Erling Haaland will miss Manchester City’s Champions League dead rubber at Red Star Belgrade but may train on Thursday, says manager Pep Guardiola.
“He will be back on Thursday, I think. We will see how he feels,” said Guardiola.
“I don’t know right now [when he will be back] but the next press conference I could be more precise.”
City have already qualified for the last 16 having won all five Group G matches so far.
Haaland has already scored five goals for the reigning champions in this season’s competition.
However, he may have been rested anyway even if he had been fit, with his Spanish boss keen to rotate his squad before next week’s trip to Saudi Arabia for the Club World Cup.
Goalkeeper Ederson is also sitting out the match in Belgrade, handing an opportunity to deputy Stefan Ortega, while City will also be without winger Jeremy Doku who has a muscle problem and long-term absentee Kevin de Bruyne.
“We approach the game like we did the first game in Manchester, the same way,” Guardiola added. “The players have to perform. We’ve prepared really well. I hope we can do a good game.
“But of course we are going to rotate some players because after we have three days, travel, semi-final, potential final.
“I’ll be very pleased to see many players who didn’t play lately involved.”
Red Star look to sign off with a flourish
Red Star, who were European champions in 1991, lost 3-1 in September’s reverse fixture in Manchester and will finish bottom of Group G having collected just one point so far.
However, head coach Barak Bakhar is hopeful his side can sign off from their European campaign with a shock victory on home soil.
“We are in first place in the [Serbian] table and we want to take this momentum. We want to finish this group stage in a good way and we will try to do that,” he said.
“We know that Manchester City will not come with a full squad but they still have the best players in the world, so we must prepare for a very tough game.”
