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Erling Haaland was not selected as part of Pep Guardiola's squad to take on Leeds United on Saturday evening owing to a minor injury, but shared his support as the Sky Blues ran out 1-0 winners over the Peacocks
Erling Haaland has reacted to Manchester City's 1-0 win at Leeds United with a two‑post response. City came away with crucial three points in Yorkshire with Antoine Semenyo scoring the only goal of the encounter on the brink of half-time.
Haaland's absence from the win was due to an issue he picked up in training during the week. The problem isn't believed to be serious, and there is optimism he could even recover in time for Wednesday's visit of Nottingham Forest, though Pep Guardiola remained cautious about giving any firm timeline for the Norwegian's return.
Speaking to the BBC after the game, the Blues boss said: "We don't have spies in the training centre to deliver the info to our media. I think it is not a big issue. We will see."
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After the game, the 25‑year‑old took to Snapchat to share a picture of himself celebrating the win.
He posted a selfie, clenching his fist, with the caption: "So important," followed by prayer and blue heart emojis.
On Instagram, he shared City’s post that read: "A hard‑fought victory" and replied with a blue heart emoji.
In Haaland's absence, Rayan Cherki stepped into the side and played a key part in the decisive moment.
After the victory, Guardiola said: "A huge victory for us. Erling is a massively important player for us, but we behaved really well. My idea of the game is that they started well, but we expect it here.
"Leeds are so intense. After that we did what we are good at for the last decade, a thousand million passes, and make the vibe of the crowd a little bit calmer.
"We missed a little bit more intention up front with the movements, but when they got fatigued the last 15 or 20 minutes we had more intention and to pass the ball to try to score a goal - and we found it at the end of the first half.
"We dropped in second half normally, but that didn’t happen today: we were incredibly focused. We didn’t create much but we didn’t concede anything. It was long balls where we struggled with the second balls.
"It was a little bit more uncomfortable, but we defended really well."
The victory at Elland Road cuts City's deficit to leaders Arsenal to two points ahead of the Gunners' meeting with Chelsea on Sunday afternoon.
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