Erling Haaland is back training with Norway after sitting out Tuesday’s session with what Ståle Solbakken called “small things”, and Man City can breathe again ahead of Saturday’s Nations League clash with Wales in Oslo.
The 26-year-old and Arsenal captain Martin Ødegaard both missed Tuesday’s work at Ullevaal Stadion. On Wednesday they were back out with the rest of the squad, though Haaland made his own way to the ground rather than taking the team bus from the players’ hotel.
Now the weather is the problem. Heavy snow in Oslo on Thursday morning forced Norway to push their training session back from midday to 3pm local time.
What did Solbakken say about Haaland?
Very little, and on purpose. Speaking on Tuesday, the Norway boss said the pair had picked up a few “small knocks” but that he had no reason to think things would not turn out well. Tuesday, he explained, was a day for everyone to recover in their own way, with the hope that the whole squad would be ready for tactical work the next day.
He would not go into any more detail than that, but he got his wish. Every player in the squad trained on Wednesday.
Haaland played the full 90 minutes of City’s 3-1 defeat at Nottingham Forest on Saturday, a game in which he had a couple of big chances but could not score, before flying into Norway on a private jet on Monday.
Snow on the Ullevaal pitch
Ullevaal was covered on Thursday morning, and the stadium would rather not clear it. Carl Bernhard Svenke, who runs the national stadium, told NRK that shovelling the snow would cause wear on the grass that could show as soon as Saturday, and certainly by March, because grass does not grow in November. The undersoil heating is on, but it cannot keep up when the snow falls this heavily.
The plan is to let it melt and hope the weather clears. The forecast was for snow to keep falling through the day.
Why the Wales game matters so much for Norway
Norway are on their worst run in a decade. They lost to Portugal home and away and then went down 2-1 to Wales in Cardiff last month, and the home defeat to Portugal was their first loss in 12 competitive games in Oslo. They have not lost four in a row since 2016.
That leaves the World Cup quarter-finalists in danger of dropping out of the top tier of the Nations League. Wales come to Ullevaal on Saturday at 5pm UK time, and Norway finish the group against Denmark in Copenhagen on Tuesday 17 November.
Solbakken is also a striker down. Jørgen Strand Larsen has left the camp with an ankle injury and gone back to England, and Viking forward Erik Botheim has come in to replace him. That makes Haaland’s fitness even more important for both games.
Two more games for Haaland before City return
From a City point of view, this is the outcome everyone wanted: a precaution early in the week, no drama and a full session on Wednesday. Haaland has been the one constant in a difficult few weeks for Enzo Maresca, and his goals have kept City close even as the results have dipped, as we looked at when he edged Harry Kane for a FIFPRO World 11 place.
The worry is the workload. Norway need results in both games, so Solbakken will want his No.9 on the pitch for as long as possible against Wales and Denmark. City will be watching Saturday’s teamsheet closely, and hoping he comes back from Copenhagen with nothing more than tired legs. For where the rest of the squad are playing this break, see our guide to City’s internationals.
