Ahead of today's early kickoff against Aston Villa, Guardiola says he only wants to field Haaland upfront and not rotate through the likes of Phil Foden or Kevin de Bruyne.
“Erling is irreplaceable,” said Guardiola.
“Of course we need all the best version of them, no just one specific player.
“I would be so selfish in that position; I said many times if it was just playing one specific player the decision would be easy. It’s not about that.
“Many of the goals we concede, we give them away it’s not about one specific situation, the situation is more difficult, and you have to work on that step by step. The moment some results come back we will be better.
“I prefer to play with Erling… I didn’t think in the situation not to play Erling, absolutely not.
“I always played false nine for the quality specific to the players I had in that moment.
“I love to play man to man but with Erling I can’t do that.
“Erling is doing well. The reason why maybe he’s not productive is that we don’t produce the amount of chances that we are able to do in the past.
“He’s surrounded by three four centre backs so it’s not easy for him we have to create more chances and create more spaces for him.”