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Manchester City could be without Erling Haaland for their next three matches as the Norway international continues to be sidelined with a foot injury.

The 23-year-old has not played for City since their 1-0 defeat at Aston Villa on December 6, a period in the treatment room which has seen the forward miss eight games across all competitions – including last month’s Club World Cup triumph.

Haaland, though, did return to training last week prior to City’s FA Cup third-round tie with Championship outfit Huddersfield Town, fuelling optimism that the forward could be, at least, named on the bench for Saturday’s visit to Newcastle United.

On Friday, however, manager Pep Guardiola confirmed Haaland was still nursing the foot issue he first suffered last month and is likely to make a return to team training during City’s warm-weather training camp in the Middle East next week.

“[It’s] a little bit of disturbing problems in his feet. It’s fine,” said Guardiola, providing an additional update on Haaland. “The doctors decided to stop for one week and maybe restart in Abu Dhabi.

“Hopefully at the end of this month he’ll be ready. It was a little bit more than we expected in the beginning. It’s a bone, it needs time. Every injury you can do whatever you want but it’s a question of time.

“Now we have two games but when you are injured at end of November, you miss a lot of games. And we missed him. We need him. Hopefully he can come back and play the last four or five months without a problem.”