Advertisement
Haaland hit a hat-trick against Forest. Alamy Stock Photo

Erling Haaland has the quality to be an all-time Man City great – Pep Guardiola

The 22-year-old bagged a 26-minute first-half treble against Nottingham Forest on Wednesday.

PEP GUARDIOLA SAYS Erling Haaland has to the potential to write himself into Manchester City folklore after his incredible assault on the Premier League continued with a second successive hat-trick.

The 22-year-old bagged a 26-minute first-half treble to put Nottingham Forest to the sword in a 6-0 win, just four days after doing the same to Crystal Palace.

He is now the first player in the Premier League era to score nine goals in his first five games and looks set to challenge Andy Cole and Alan Shearer’s record high of 34 goals in a season.

Haaland has a long way to go to catch up with City record scorer Sergio Aguero, but Guardiola says the Norwegian can become a club great.

“Sergio is the legend. Nobody can break the position in the hearts of City fans, scoring the most important goal in the modern history,” he said.

Erling has the quality to be there. It’s not about him or Sergio. What Sergio has done is amazing. But Erling has this talent. When City bought Erling, everybody talked about what he has done in the past. What we wanted to do is help him. Hopefully he can enjoy and score more goals.

“What he has done in Norway, Austria and Germany he tries to do here. He’s talented, we knew it.”

Even at this early stage it looks like only an injury will stop him from claiming the Premier League Golden Boot, but Guardiola says winning the title with City would mean more.

“I think what we want is win the titles,” he added.

“If the record and the goals help to win it will be be perfect. Knowing him a little bit, I don’t know if he’d be happy breaking records if we didn’t win titles.

“I think he wants to be part of that. The better we play, he’ll have more chances to score goals.”

This was not just the Haaland story as fellow new striker Julian Alvarez marked his first league start with a second-half brace.

“Julian as well, we have two incredible strikers. An incredible sense of smell to score goals,” Guardiola added.

“I have the feeling that there is not one person who is not happy for Julian’s two goals. We’ve seen from day one in training about him.”

City are trying to sign Borussia Dortmund defender Manuel Akanji before Thursday’s transfer deadline, but Guardiola says the move has not been completed.

“The club tell me the deal is still not done, but we are going to try,” the Spaniard added.

Forest, who have shown enough already this term to suggest their return to the top tier will not be a fleeting one, will be happy to get this fixture out of the way early on and will view Saturday’s clash against Bournemouth with far more relish.

They were unable to cope with City’s attacking onslaught and boss Steve Cooper was pragmatic.

“First and foremost they are an incredible team and play in an incredible way and players that match both of those things, including Haaland,” he said.

We knew coming into the game that it was as tough as it gets, not just in our league but also in the world on the domestic stage. Haaland is brilliant. I don’t want to take anything away for his goals but I am looking at our guys and thinking we could have done better.

“We had to be 100%, we had to be perfect in the game to get any success, and even if we were it didn’t mean the game was going to go straightforward, but we weren’t.

“The three goals we conceded in the first half are soft really. That set the tone for the rest of the night.

“Tonight won’t define our season, I’ll make sure that isn’t the case. We have to live and learn.” 

The42 is on Instagram! Tap the button below on your phone to follow us!

Close
14 Comments
This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic. Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy here before taking part.
Leave a Comment
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Chris Mcdonnell
    Favourite Chris Mcdonnell
    Report
    May 18th 2015, 2:32 PM

    Even when on the bench he didn’t get game time. The coach doesn’t like or trust him. Saturday once again showed just how wrong O’connor has been all season

    90
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Colin Webber
    Favourite Colin Webber
    Report
    May 18th 2015, 6:24 PM

    O’Connor is just all wrong for Leinster.

    32
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Mark Lawlor
    Favourite Mark Lawlor
    Report
    May 18th 2015, 2:31 PM

    He has a very big chance next season with Leinster during the World Cup, midfield won’t be as competitive so he should get a good run of matches.

    80
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Chris Mcdonnell
    Favourite Chris Mcdonnell
    Report
    May 18th 2015, 6:56 PM

    Mark if Darcy doesn’t make the World Cup squad, he’ll play 12 with t’eo at 13. Then Madigan and sexton will be back so the midfield won’t be as easy to get into as you may think

    3
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute David Davidson
    Favourite David Davidson
    Report
    May 18th 2015, 4:27 PM

    That pop pass from O’Brien

    47
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Irish Underage Rugby
    Favourite Irish Underage Rugby
    Report
    May 18th 2015, 2:54 PM

    Battle between him and Madigan for the 12 jersey next season.

    45
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Cian Walker
    Favourite Cian Walker
    Report
    May 19th 2015, 4:02 AM

    It’s always to easy to see who coaches ‘just like/don’t like’. When Gopperth played badly it was ignored whereas when Madigan played mediocre or even if Reid played well decisions went against them.

    It creates such a poisonous culture as some players start to feel entitled to spots and others feel it doesn’t matter how well they play they won’t get picked. Cody and Fergusson were masters at disregarding players identities and judging on match performance alone. MOC is such a stink manager.

    7
Submit a report
Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
Thank you for the feedback
Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.

Leave a commentcancel