Pep Guardiola expects Erling Haaland to return for Manchester City in the “next games”.
The City boss has played down the prospects of the striker, who is now back in full training, featuring in Friday’s Premier League clash with Wolves but he appears to be making good progress.
Haaland, who has scored 30 goals this season, has missed City’s last six games since suffering an ankle injury in the FA Cup quarter-final win at Bournemouth.
Guardiola said: “He’s getting better. The injury was for six weeks and now he’s between weeks four and five.
“The injury is not easy. Syndesmosis (problems) are tricky, tricky injuries but he’s making partial training and on Wednesday he was almost fully training.
“So, he’s getting better. Hopefully in the next games he can be there.”
The FA Cup final on May 17 is clearly a target for Haaland and he should certainly be fully available for the Club World Cup, which starts in June.
That tournament in the United States does however present a problem for City in terms of their preparation for next season.
Should City reach the final their campaign would not end until July 13 and if they are involved in the Community Shield they will be back in action four weeks later on August 9.
That does not leave enough time for either adequate rest or pre-season work and Guardiola concedes he does not know the answer.
“To be honest, I don’t know,” he said. “I’d like to give weeks off but we cannot give it to them.
“The players need to disconnect mentally and physically but the schedule is the schedule.
“We knew it from the beginning, that the next season, the pre-season, would be a short time.
“Hopefully we have fit players. If we have fit players we can rotate and we can handle it. The problem is when we have injuries. If we have that we would have big, big problems.”
