Euro 2024 and the Copa America are over, and some Manchester City players are back at the CFA for pre-season – including Erling Haaland, who has sent a message to fans.
Pep Guardiola has welcomed back a section of his squad, with several not due back just yet following their exploits for their nations.
All those who went to Euro 2024 barring Mateo Kovacic and Josko Gvardiol have been given extended breaks. They are to rest up and recharge their batteries before returning at a later date.
Julian Alvarez won the Copa America and will now have the chance to rest up a bit before he goes to the Olympics.
But Pep still has a number of players to work with now, including his goal machine Erling Haaland, who had a message for fans on social media yesterday.
Erling Haaland sends message to Man City fans as he returns for pre-season
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As Norway did not qualify for Euro 2024, it has been a chance for Haaland to rest up this summer.
He featured a lot last season, although he did pick up an injury halfway through causing him to miss a couple of months.
But he still made 45 appearances, for a total of 3745 minutes.
So it is a big positive that Haaland did not have any international involvement this summer, as much as he would have loved to go to the Euros.
Haaland was in high spirits earlier this week, as the club filmed him reporting back for pre-season.
He then took to Instagram to post a few pictures. On one of them, he is posing alongside Jack Grealish and Kalvin Phillips, whose situation will be interesting to watch this summer.
He captioned his post ‘Year 3️⃣… Let’s get to it! 🔥’
A rested Haaland is a huge boost for City
It might be that some of the players who have been on international duty are a little bit off it at the start of 2024/25 season.
The likes of Rodri, Kyle Walker, John Stones and Phil Foden and Julian Alvarez all went deep into tournaments and it’s very possible they will be lacking a bit in those early weeks, especially as they are coming back into the picture a bit later.
But it’s a big boost that Haaland will be fresh from the off.
While he doesn’t get through as much running as some of his teammates, he still played a lot last season so for him to fully replenish is good.
He scored 38 goals last season which was down from 52 in his first term.
Anywhere around that 38 mark again in season three would be a fantastic achievement, and City fans will totally back him to do it.
