Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola believes Erling Haaland is unrivalled and even outperforms the statistics. Since joining the club from Borussia Dortmund in the summer, the striker has scored 17 goals and provided three assists in 11 appearances, and his hat-trick against Manchester United on Sunday was his third in three home Premier League games.
The 22-year-old is averaging a goal every 54 minutes, has 42 shots, and has three assists, including two in United’s 6-3 loss. The Norwegian will look to add to his 26 Champions League goals from 21 games when City hosts FC Copenhagen on Wednesday.
“At his age no one can compete with him. The numbers speak for themselves and inside, in the locker room, and on the pitch we see things that are not in the stats that make us feel happy to have him here.”
Guardiola said.
Haaland has now scored against all but one of City’s league opponents this season – he still managed to provide an assist in the 4-0 defeat of Bournemouth – and has already silenced the doubters who suggested he might struggle to find goals in the Premier League.
If he continues to score at his current rate, he will have scored more than 60 goals this season. He will most likely slow down at some point, but the Premier League single-season goal record of 32 set by Mohamed Salah appears to be beatable.
Pep was asked by beIN SPORTS if he expects Haaland to score in every game, as he did when he was coaching Lionel Messi at Barcelona. For the Catalans, the seven-time Ballon d’Or winner scored 474 goals in 520 La Liga games, including a 50-goal haul in 2011/12. Haaland has 107 goals in 146 league appearances in his senior career.
“Yeah, but they are different. Erling maybe needs all his mates [teammates] to do it, and when he arrives there [the penalty area]… unbelievable. Messi had the ability for himself to do it [all],”
he said.
