Haaland out as City make one change for Leeds clash

In partnership with

Manchester City F.C.

·28. Februar 2026

Haaland out as City make one change for Leeds clash

Erling Haaland has been ruled out of this afternoon's clash with Leeds United.

Our Norwegian top-scorer is not fully fit for the game at Elland Road and as a result, Rayan Cherki returns to the starting XI.

OneFootball Videos

Jeremy Doku makes a welcome return on the bench.

Team News

City: Donnarumma, Nunes, Dias, Guéhi, Ait-Nouri, Rodrigo, Bernardo (C), O’Reilly, Semenyo, Cherki, Marmoush

Subs: Trafford, Reijnders, Stones, Ake, Doku, Nico, Savinho, Khusanov, Foden

Leeds United: Darlow, Bogle, Justin, Rodon, Struijk, Gudmundsson; Stach, Ampadu, Gruev, Aaronson; Calvert-Lewin

Subs: Perri, Bornauw, Bijol, Longstaff, Tanaka, James, Gnonto, Nmecha, Piroe

Tactics and formation

It will be interesting to see if Pep Guardiola makes any tactical tweaks against Leeds, given the problems they gave us in the second-half at the Etihad in November.

Gigio Donnarumma will take his place in goal, with Matheus Nunes and Rayan Ait-Nouri as right and left-back respectively.

Ruben Dias and Marc Guéhi are our centre-backs, with a midfield trio of Rodri, Bernardo and Nico O’Reilly.

Antoine Semenyo and Cherki will provide support to Omar Marmoush who will play centrally up front.

Leeds reborn – thanks to City clash?

City face a rejuvenated Leeds United who haven’t really looked back since visiting the Etihad last November.

That day, City looked on course for a comfortable victory as we went into the break 2-0 up against Daniel Farke’s side courtesy of a Phil Foden and Josko Gvardiol’s goals.

Indeed, many wondered if the German boss would be under severe pressure if he left the Etihad with a heavy loss, but instead, he rolled the dice, brought on Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Jaka Bijal and changed his formation to have two up front and the visitors were transformed.

By 68 minutes, goals from Calbert-Lewin and Lukas Nmecha had levelled the scores and the visitors looked set for an unlikely victory.

However, an added time winner from Foden gave the Blues the points – but Farke had seen enough to adopt a different approach.

Since then, they have lost just two of 14 Premier League games (plus another two unbeaten in the FA Cup) and are a totally different proposition this afternoon.

City will have to negate one of the division’s form sides and a raucous Elland Road crowd if we are to keep the pressure on Arsenal this weekend.

SIGN IN FOR FREE ACCESS

Don’t have an account? Register now

Stats and facts

Leeds have lost each of their last five Premier League games against City, having lost just four of their first 16 against them in the competition (W7 D5).

City have won their last two away league games against Leeds – only once have they won three consecutively, doing so in their first three visits to Elland Road between 1924 and 1928.

Since the start of December, Leeds United have drawn more games than any other Premier League side (8), with the Whites going 1-0 ahead in three of their last four draws which all ended 1-1.

Since the 2017-18 season, City have only conceded 2+ goals in three of their 52 Premier League games against newly promoted teams – two were against Leeds (lost 2-1 in April 2021, won 3-2 in November 2025) and the other was against Daniel Farke’s Norwich in September 2019 (lost 3-2).

Leeds United haven’t lost any of their last 25 league or play-off matches at Elland Road that have kicked off after 5pm (W20 D5) since a 6-1 defeat to Liverpool in April 2023.

City will play this match a day before Arsenal – who they are chasing for the Premier League title – face Chelsea. City have only lost one of their last 14 Premier League games when playing the day before the Gunners (W10 D3), a 2-1 defeat to Newcastle in November earlier this season.

Since the start of the 2021-22 season, Leeds have only kept a clean sheet in seven of their 43 Premier League matches when they’ve scored first – their only two clean sheets of that type this season saw them go 1-0 up in the 84th (vs Everton) and 90th (vs Fulham) minutes; when going 1-0 up in the first half, Leeds have conceded in each of their last 21 matches since a 3-0 win against Chelsea in August 2022.

Leeds-born striker Erling Haaland scored two Premier League goals on his last visit to Elland Road in December 2022 for Man City, although he’s not netted in his two home games against Leeds. No visiting player has scored 2+ goals in consecutive Premier League visits to Elland Road.