Pep Guardiola press conference: Erling Haaland and Nico O’Reilly injury updates ahead of Nottingham Forest clash | OneFootball

Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has handed fresh fitness updates on his squad ahead of Wednesday evening’s meeting with Nottingham Forest.

City are searching for a seventh consecutive win in all competitions when they take on Vitor Pereira’s men in a bid to keep up the pressure on Premier League leaders Arsenal, who face a tricky test away at Brighton on Thursday night.

The title race is at its final stretches as Arsenal aim to thwart yet another hijack from the Etihad Stadium in search of their first Premier League title win in 22 years, entering the midweek round of games five points ahead of City, who retain a game in hand.

Antoine Semenyo scored the only goal of the game at the weekend for City against Leeds United at Elland Road, whereas Arsenal narrowly saw off Chelsea a week on from handing Tottenham a 4-1 drubbing on their own patch.

Pep Guardiola and co remain on course for an unprecedented quadruple as they embark on the business end of their first full season under director of football Hugo Viana, with City also playing title rivals Arsenal in the Carabao Cup final at Wembley in less than three weeks.

Erling Haaland was a surprise exclusion from the travelling squad for Yorkshire at the weekend for City as Guardiola revealed the Norway international has suffered a ‘small injury’ in training ahead of the fixture.

Meanwhile, the in-form Nico O’Reilly went off with an ankle injury after 70 minutes to raise doubt over his availability against Nottingham Forest, who are 17th in the Premier League table and are desperate to overturn what has been a horror campaign for the City Ground faithful.

Speaking in a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, Guardiola confirmed that a decision on Haaland’s availability will be made later on in the day.

“He feels much better, but yesterday (on Monday) we didn’t train and now we have training. We’ll decide today,” Guardiola said on Haaland.

O’Reilly, Guardiola added that the same applies to 20-year-old O’Reilly, who has been one of the first names on the teamsheet this season and remains a doubt to feature against Forest.

City must take each game as it comes if they are to usurp Arsenal and mark yet another successful title hijack over the Gunners, who allowed the Blues to claw their way back into the title race in February and remain well in the margin to surrender their slender lead at the top.

Guardiola and co have experience on their side and the Manchester City side will be leaning on his captaincy group – comprising club captain Bernardo Silva, Ruben Dias, Rodri and Haaland – to spearhead his young, new-look dressing room to a trophy-laden finish to the season.