Foot & Soccer Soccer Match Reports, Football News 
Manchester Metropolis is about to host Liverpool in Matchday 26 of the 2024-25 Premier League season, following a major blow in mid-week with their Champions League elimination by Actual Madrid. Forward of the essential conflict, Pep Guardiola has raised doubts over star striker Erling Haaland’s availability.
The alarm bells went off final Saturday throughout Metropolis’s 4-0 victory over Newcastle United when Haaland was substituted within the 88th minute after struggling a knee harm. The Norwegian ahead was unnoticed as an unused substitute through the Champions League recreation in Madrid, and Guardiola was hesitant to verify his standing for the Liverpool match.
“Tomorrow we’ll know extra. I don’t know but. Hopeful? Perhaps, however I can’t say for certain. We practice in the present day and tomorrow, he’ll check, I assume, however I don’t know,” Guardiola stated in his pre-match press convention, indicating {that a} last-minute determination might be made.
Whereas Omar Marmoush scored a hat-trick in Metropolis’s final Premier League recreation, Guardiola was fast to emphasise Haaland’s significance to the staff: “It’s higher to have Erling on the pitch than not. However with Erling, we’re the place we’re proper now. All people is liable for each the great and the unhealthy issues for the staff. With Erling, we’re stronger.”
Regardless of not being at his greatest in comparison with earlier seasons, Haaland stays one in every of Metropolis’s standout performers within the 2024-25 marketing campaign. In 35 appearances throughout all competitions, the striker has netted 27 targets and registered 3 assists, at present sitting second on the league’s goal-scoring leaderboard.
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Guardiola on Manchester Metropolis’s probabilities in opposition to Liverpool
Liverpool, with a commanding 8-point lead and only one loss within the Premier League, are the favorites going into the Sunday showdown. Nevertheless, regardless of Metropolis’s midweek setback and a number of other key gamers sidelined with accidents, Guardiola stays optimistic about his staff’s probabilities in opposition to the league leaders.
“The Premier League is massively essential for us. We’ve had some excellent video games. Even within the 5-1 loss to Arsenal, I believed we performed rather well for 60 minutes, however we’ve not been steady. However in different video games, like in opposition to Newcastle, we hit a very excessive stage,” he stated.
Though Metropolis is successfully out of the title race following a sequence of poor outcomes, Guardiola acknowledged that securing Champions League qualification stays the membership’s important goal for the rest of the season. “We’ll attempt to play effectively and take the factors we have to keep within the hunt and qualify for subsequent season,” he concluded.
