Erling Haaland 'ready' for Manchester City's clash with Southampton

Manchester City's prolific striker Erling Haaland is available to play on Saturday when City visit Southampton, manager Pep Guardiola revealed on Friday.

The Norwegian star returned to training this week after a groin injury forced him to miss City's 4-1 victory over Liverpool last weekend.

Guardiola confirmed Haaland will be in the squad for Saturday's game ahead of a visit from Bayern Munich for their Champions League first-leg quarterfinal on Tuesday.

"He trained the last two days, really good. He will be ready," the manager said.

Haaland's return will provide a boost to City as they approach the home stretch of the campaign, with three trophies still up for grabs.

City, who are second in the league and eight points behind leaders Arsenal but with a game in hand, have also reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League and semi-finals of the FA Cup.

Their coming run of fixtures will likely define their season, but Guardiola said his players are well accustomed to the pressure.

"The last part of the season, international break, it depends on us how many games we are going to play, Premier League for sure, Champions League, FA Cup," Guardiola said.

"If we win, we're still in, if we don't we're out... If we drop points Arsenal will be champions in advance, if we win, win, win, we might be champions at the end of the season. We are used to it, it's not a problem."

Haaland, who has scored 42 goals in all competitions this season, had to withdraw from his country’s European Championship qualifiers against Spain and Georgia two weeks ago because of the injury.

Haaland leads the Premier League scoring charts with 28 goals and has hit nine in his last three games in all competitions.

City will face bottom club Southampton