Pep Guardiola says that Erling Haaland needs care around the clock to ensure he is fit to play every week. Haaland missed 16 games with injury last season at Borussia Dortmund and arrived in the summer with fitness issues that delayed his start to pre-season training. However, the Manchester City forward has been one of Guardiola’s most-used players in this campaign with only Rodri and Ederson managing more than his 3,018 minutes in all competitions.
Pep Guardiola said: “I don’t know what he has done in Dortmund but here we take care of him 24 hours, we have incredible physios and doctors behind every single detail. It is always difficult for me to understand why clubs spend a lot of money on players and then leave them. With this demanding schedule with games every three or four days, behind the players we have to have an incredible entourage to take care of them. It’s so demanding today, with nutrition, rest, food, sleep, training how many minutes. There is data that says they cannot train more than 10-15 minutes, otherwise they would be at risk. People say why substitute him against Leipzig when he scored all the goals? He was injured after the Burnley game, could not play with Norway or with us against Liverpool. We know he has to be like a watch because he’s so big; physios, massage, backs, shoulders, problem in his tendons and everything. He works most of the time inside of the training centre, not on the pitch. Today in modern football, normally the players train more behind the scenes than on the pitch.”
