Erling Haaland OUT from Man City’s competitive game against Liverpool with a groin injury sustained in a nasty blow to Guardiola

ERLING HAALAND is out of today’s crunch duel with Liverpool in a heavy hitting at Manchester City.

The 22-year-old superstar forward withdrew from the Norway international after suffering a groin injury against Burnley.

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And he faced a race against time to be fit in time for Jurgen Klopp’s Reds visit to the Etihad this lunchtime.

However, he lost that fight and will not be involved at all.

It means Julian Alvarez will lead the line for the reigning Premier League champions with Riyad Mahrez and Jack Grealish while Phil Foden continues his recovery from appendix surgery.

Pep Guardiola admitted on Friday he wasn’t sure he could risk his 42-goal hitter Haaland.

The Manchester City manager said: “Erling is recovering. This afternoon is the last training session, then we’ll see how he feels.

“Again, the doctors and especially the player will decide how he is doing. I spoke to him yesterday and he’s fine.”

“We’ll see. Life is made up of risks and sometimes you have to take them.

“He scored a lot of goals, he scored a lot of goals, we’re always a team that scores a lot of goals in the season, we’ll try to do that until the end of the season.”

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Haaland felt some discomfort in his groin after scoring a hat-trick in the 6-0 FA Cup win over Burnley on March 18.

He signed up for international duty with Norway later in the weekend – but it quickly became clear he would not be ready to appear in their Euro 2024 qualifiers.

The £51.4million star visited his club’s favorite medical experts in Barcelona before taking some time to relax at his holiday home in Marbella.

Haaland then returned to Manchester late on Sunday night – but has so far not attended a full squad meeting.

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