Revealed: Why Erling Haaland wasn’t included in Man City squad for crucial Leeds trip

City's players arrived at Elland Road a couple of hours before their 5:30pm (GMT) kick-off, but Haaland did not emerge from the team bus, leading to speculation over his absence. As first reported by Jan-Aage Fjortoft, Haaland has supposedly picked up a minor injury in training, with his knee the problem area in particular.

Pep Guardiola told the media before kick-off: "Two days ago, in the last moments of training, [Haaland] had some problems, a little injury. It's not a big issue, but he's not ready for today."

With Haaland out, Omar Marmoush is expected to lead the line for City at Leeds, with Rayan Cherki and Antoine Semenyo providing support from the wings. Gianluigi Donnarumma starts in goal, with a back four of Matheus Nunes, Ruben Dias, Marc Guehi and Rayan Ait-Nouri. Rodri, Nico O'Reilly and captain Bernardo Silva start in midfield.

A strong City bench includes James Trafford, Abdukodir Khusanov, John Stones, Nathan Ake, Nico Gonzalez, Tijjani Reijnders, Phil Foden, Jeremy Doku and Savinho.

Should City emerge victorious at Elland Road, they will move to within two points of Premier League leaders Arsenal having played the same number of games. The Gunners welcome London rivals Chelsea to the Emirates Stadium on Sunday, with City's actual game in hand coming against Crystal Palace, rearranged after making the Carabao Cup final, coming later in the season.

Guardiola admitted in his pre-match press conference earlier this week that a trip to Leeds is not as simple as being made out. He said: "I don't take for granted, it's so difficult [now to play out from the back], before they always allowed you to have two central defenders against a striker, or three against two. Now it's not possible. 

"It will be the same at Elland Road, man marking. When we played at Newcastle it happened. I saw a few clips of Nottingham Forest with the new manager [Vitor Pereira]. Always it's happened against Liverpool. That is the reality.

"Most of the teams play that way. You have to adapt, have an alternative when that happens. An alternative is you have to play quicker up front, if you win that ball it's a chance. We had an incredible five or six chances against Newcastle where we missed the last pass, when we can run. 

"When the team is brave to go one against one, if you can make some combinations to win that ball you can run. Saying that, it's not easy because you can make a safer two metre pass than a more difficult thirty metre pass. 

"Always we try to find a way to not just use Erling or a striker in that position. We have to have more variation and unpredictability in our game to drop them and after that make another type of game. 

"It's like this, defend so high man to man and then defend so, so deep in the box. There are not 'middle blocks' and there is not much process to do it for many, many teams. But we are working on it."

Leeds are unbeaten in their last 25 evening matches at Elland Road - a run which extends all the way back to 2023. A win for Daniel Farke's side would move them level on points with Brighton & Hove Albion in 14th and open up a nine-point buffer to the relegation zone.