Erling Haaland among Man City trio to miss Club World Cup final

Manchester City’s Club World Cup campaign will be without Erling Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne, and Jeremy Doku.

All three players were left out of Pep Guardiola’s 23-man squad for the semi-final against Urawa Red Diamonds, and tournament rules state that the same players must report for duty regardless of whether the Premier League finals advance to face Fluminense in the final or Al Ahly in the third-place play-off on Friday.

Haaland, De Bruyne, and Doku were injured when they arrived in Saudi Arabia. Haaland missed the win at Luton and the draw at Crystal Palace due to a stress fracture in his foot.

De Bruyne trained with City’s squad on Monday afternoon, but has been out since August after undergoing surgery to repair a ruptured hamstring. Doku, the flying Belgian winger who joined City from Rennes in the summer, has also missed City’s last two games due to a muscle injury suffered against Tottenham.

City are hoping that all three will be available to help them rebuild their title challenge in the coming year. The Treble winners from last season have won just one of their last six games and are now fourth in the table.

Bernardo Silva, on the other hand, has warned the team’s detractors not to rule them out of winning the Premier League for the fourth time in a row when they return to England, at which point they may have lost even more ground at the top.

“Do you have any doubts about us?” said the playmaker. Let’s wait and see what happens in May. Let’s see where we end up. I’m not going to promise we’ll do it. But, with the exception of my third season, when Liverpool easily won, we have won five of the last six titles. So no one can say this team isn’t capable of putting together a strong run. We can do it, and we will work on it. We’ve previously demonstrated that this team is capable of winning games and going on a run.”

Guardiola has previously won the Club World Cup as a manager, doing so with Barcelona in 2009 and 2011. He then won it a third time when he took over at Bayern Munich, and he believes victory with City would cap off their incredible season.