Enzo Maresca confirms huge Man City injury blow and gives Erling Haaland update

· Mirror

Erling Haaland came off limping after Manchester City's 3-2 win against Ipswich, making him the latest of several injury concerns for Enzo Maresca before their Champions League clash with AEK Athens

Enzo Maresca has confirmed that Erling Haaland is available to face AEK Athens - but Manchester City team-mate Antoine Semenyo will be out for around eight weeks. City striker Haaland was seen limping at the end of Saturday's dramatic 3-2 victory over Ipswich.

Before the win, Maresca revealed that he may be forced to take the 26-year-old out of his starting line-up to avoid injury. But Haaland wasn't the only concern from the Ipswich match. Matheus Nunes and Mateo Kovacic both came off injured during the second half, while Semenyo picked up a knock after coming on as a late substitute.

Ahead of City's game at home to Athens on Tuesday, Maresca provided an update by telling a press conference: "He (Haaland) can be available. We will see.

> "We have a session now. We have some doubts after Saturday's game. He was quite good yesterday, better. The rest are more or less okay. The only one that will be out for probably eight weeks is Antoine.

> "In the first moment we expect an even worse injury so we were more worried but after the scan we are less worried. It could be eight weeks. Now the most important thing is to recover it. When he is back, around December, we have a new player. It's not muscular."

> "To lose Antoine, or any player, is not good. In terms of Erling, we said we can use Antoine as a nine but we have different players to try. We will see, at the moment it is Erling, we don't need to think about another one."

Maresca went on to explain how players like Haaland and Semenyo - who featured at the World Cup - will need to be managed. "We need to pay attention to workloads," the City boss continued.

> "That is why we will do some changes tomorrow. Try and keep players fit. Some things are out of our control, like Antoine.

> "Antoine was one of the players we wanted to rest, he played 10-15 minutes, and then he got injured. We need to pay attention [to the World Cup players]."

City resume their Champions League campaign on three points, having beaten Porto 2-0 away from home in their first game before suffering a 4-2 loss against Paris Saint-Germain at the Etihad. Athens are also on three points, having beat LASK in their opener before last week's defeat to Shakhtar Donetsk.

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