Pep Guardiola promised to drop any Manchester City players who piled on the pounds over Christmas for their upcoming Premier League match against Nottingham Forest
Erling Haaland has given himself the all clear to play for Manchester City against Nottingham Forest after Pep Guardiola’s weight warning.
City’s manager has said that any player who piles on the pounds over Christmas will be staying in Manchester rather than travelling to the City Ground. Haaland has weighed in after reporting back to training on Christmas Day, following three days off, and shared the results on social media.
The striker tipped the scales at 94.4kg two days before they face Forest. “All good!!” Haaland captioned the picture on Instagram, a post to which Gianluigi Donnarumma commented with laughing emojis.
Haaland spoke about weighing around 94kg in a 2021 interview with the Norwegian terrestrial television channel TV2. Haaland said back then: “I weighed 86 kilos when I came to Dortmund.
“Now I’m almost up and nodding at 94 kilos. I’m not the best at counting, but that’s eight kilos in a year and a half.
“If you look at my whole body, you see that I have changed extremely. I am a completely different person… I have become ‘more of a man.'”
That suggests Haaland should be safe from the chop when City face Forest. However, some of his teammates could fall foul of Guardiola’s weight warning.
He said: “The moment they arrive after three days [off], I want to see how they come back. They can eat, but I want to control them.
“Imagine one player, and now he’s perfect, but he will arrive with three kilos more. He will be in Manchester; he will not travel to Nottingham Forest.”
The players were all weighed before the West Ham United match. City will now compare those figures with today’s results before their next game.
Guardiola also stressed after their last match that the team “have to play better”. He also turned down their request for a fourth day off.
The manager said after the West Ham match on Saturday: “The players asked me to have tomorrow’s [Sunday’s] training session off. And I said no, because they didn’t play well enough.
“So Sunday recovery, train the guys that didn’t play. And after three days off, they have two days to prepare for Nottingham Forest.”
The importance of players spending time with their family is not lost on Guardiola, though. He said: “I’ve learned from England, since I arrived, as much days [where you can] have a day off, you give them.
“The schedule is so tight, and the players have to forget. The moment of the game, they will be fresh in the legs.”