Haaland has played every minute of our first three Premier League matches, scoring three times as he goes in the hunt of a fourth Golden Boot in five seasons.
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City now head into a busy couple of weeks, with the Champions League and Carabao Cup being introduced on top of the league schedule.
However, the boss says he’s prepared to make the call to leave out his No.9 when the situation calls for it.
“At the moment, he’s played every minute apart from the Community Shield,” said Maresca.
“We need to protect Erling because the season is very long and he’s going to have games where he needs to recover.
“Depends on the game and gameplan. Antoine can play nine. Phil has played fake nine. It depends on the game.”
City now head to Porto for our first assignment in this season’s Champions League before the short trip to Old Trafford to face old rivals Manchester United.
With a young, hungry squad, Maresca is keen to give many of his promising talents exposure to the pressure of big games as soon as possible.
“The first game is on Tuesday. The focus will be on that and then we focus on the next one.
“We saw today with Ayyoub [Bouaddi], [Ryan] McAidoo, Iliman Ndiaye, they haven’t played in Champions League but they need to start so on Tuesday they are going to start to get minutes in the Champions League.”
