Pep Guardiola joked that Erling Haaland's bed is behind his renewed stamina with Manchester City before reiterating plans to rotate him.
Haaland played the full 90 minutes in City's helter-skelter draw with Newcastle, scoring his team's second and proving a handful all afternoon for the Newcastle defence. The Norwegian international arrived at the Etihad with some doubts over his fitness after an injury-riddled season for Dortmund and City left him out of their first pre-season game, but he has started all five matches since.
Guardiola praised the work of his physios and doctors for their work in getting Haaland ready for the campaign. However, the coach also used the examples of Riyad Mahrez and Bernardo Silva to show that the £51m striker will not start every game going forward.
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"Good food, good rest. People say the apartment he’s bought has a good bed. Nothing special," he said.
"What is important is he doesn’t have niggles. Last season he didn’t play 90 minutes because he was injured. The physios and doctors did an incredible job since he arrived to avoid injuries.
"Now he has one game a week. I tell you now when we have games every three days that Erling will not play, I will play Julian [Alvarez]. One of my favourite players is Bernardo and he did not play until today. Riyad is by far one of my favourite players - especially on the biggest stages - and today he didn’t play. When we start with games every three days, everyone is going to play.
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