Pep Guardiola has said he will not consider dropping Erling Haaland and adopting a false No 9 in an attempt to find a formula to arrest Manchester City’s run of eight defeats in 11 matches.
City travel to Aston Villa for Saturday’s early kick-off, with the 3-0 win over Nottingham Forest on 4 December the champions’ only triumph since they beat Southampton 1-0 on 26 October.
Before Haaland joined City in June 2022, Guardiola enjoyed considerable success when deploying a false No 9, and he was asked if he would consider dropping the Norwegian and reverting to that way of playing, despite Haaland’s superb track record of scoring goals for City, with his 13 in the Premier League this season making him the division’s joint top-scorer, alongside Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah.
“No, no, I didn’t think about that,” said Guardiola. “Always I play false 9s for the quality – specifically the players [we play against] in that moment. In some games, for example, playing against man-to-man, against teams man-to-man: I love to play a false 9. But to have an Erling, I have to adapt.”
City sold Julián Alvarez to Atlético Madrid for £81.5m in early August with the Argentina forward not replaced in Guardiola’s squad, and this despite the club making a £139m profit on player sales for last season, only £30.8m of which was reinvested in Savinho in the summer market. With Rodri absent for the remainder of the season with a serious knee injury, City are now considering strengthening in January.
Guardiola was asked if the 130 charges for alleged breaches of financial rules that have been brought against City by the Premier League might make players reluctant to join them, especially with a verdict and potential sentence – the club deny any wrongdoing – unknown. “I don’t know,” said Guardiola. “It’s going to happen in winter time. I don’t know what’s going to happen. I know the people are expecting that but I don’t know. In February, March, [maybe] will be the sentence.”
Meanwhile, City will be without Rúben Dias for a lengthy spell because of a muscle problem suffered by the centre-back in Sunday’s 2-1 loss to Manchester United. “He will be out for three to four weeks,” said Guardiola. “Against United he felt something, but he’s so strong and he wanted to stay on the pitch. Now he’s injured.”
Ederson is also a doubt for the trip to Villa. “Eddie has been struggling with some niggles in his leg and now he doesn’t feel completely fine,” said Guardiola. “And of course, it is so important for us, for the personality, for everything.”
