Erling Haaland misses Manchester City’s trip to Leeds United

Erling Haaland has been left out of the Manchester City squad for their game against Leeds United and has been replaced in the starting line-up by Omar Marmoush.

The 25-year-old striker played the entirety of his side’s previous outing, the 2-1 victory over Newcastle United on February 21.

However, the Norway international misses the trip to Elland Road to face Leeds, the city in which he was born and the club that his father Alf-Inge Haaland played for from 1997 to 2000.

“Two days ago in training he (Haaland) had some problems and a little injury,” City manager Pep Guardiola said before the game. “Not a big issue but not ready for today. We are without one top striker and we are playing with another top striker (Marmoush).”

Haaland posted a picture on social media reacting to the 1-0 victory, with the caption “so important”.

Prior to today, Haaland had not missed a single game league this season. He has started 26 of City’s 27 Premier League games, coming off the bench in the 2-0 victory over Wolverhampton Wanderers on January 24.

The striker has scored 29 goals in 38 games this campaign, with 22 of those strikes coming in the Premier League — the highest in the division.

In his last appearance at Elland Road, Haaland scored twice in a 3-1 City victory in December 2022.

City, five points behind league leaders Arsenal, have the chance to cut the north London side’s lead at the top to just three points.  Leeds have only lost three games at home this season, with their last defeat at Elland Road coming to Arsenal on January 31.

Leeds United starting XI: Karl Darlow, Jayden Bogle, James Justin, Joe Rodon, Pascal Struijk, Gabriel Gudmundsson, Anton Stach, Ethan Ampadu, Ilia Gruev, Brenden Aaronson; Dominic Calvert-Lewin

Manchester City starting XI: Gianluigi Donnarumma, Matheus Nunes, Ruben Dias, Marc Guehi, Rayan Ait-Nouri, Rodri, Bernardo Silva, Nico O’Reilly, Antoine Semenyo, Rayan Cherki, Omar Marmoush

Absence bad timing for City

Analysis by Sam Lee

Of all the games for Haaland to miss, this is not an ideal one. Leeds away poses its own risks and given City are often forced into going long to Haaland to relieve any pressure, especially when opponents deploy man-to-man marking (City expect that Leeds will), it means Pep Guardiola is robbed of his main target man, the one who battles most with opposition defences.

They will have to continue with that approach and hope that Semenyo, who is far more likely to be useful in those situations than Marmoush, can help get his team up the pitch and act as proper outlet when the game goes end-to-end, as it invariably does with City these days.

Haaland’s goal threat speaks for itself, of course, and while there are almost certainly going to be twists and turns in the title race, City could do without dropping points right now given they have only very recently started to apply proper pressure on Arsenal.