Erling Haaland scored six goals this week and is on top of English football. The Manchester City striker scored five goals against RB Leipzig on Wednesday and a hat-trick against Burnley on Saturday. Pep Guardiola fears that expectations around the Norwegian will become unrealistic.
Guardiola sees downside to Haaland’s success: “He has a problem for the future”
Haaland already has 42 goals for City in all competitions, in just 37 games. The City striker is thus approaching Ruud van Nistelrooij (in the 2002/03 season) and Mohamed Salah (2017/18) as the most productive Premier League player in one season. Van Nistelrooij and Salah scored 44 times in official matches in one year.
Alan Shearer already predicted on Saturday evening that Haaland might go to sixty goals. “I don’t know exactly, but I do know that Erling has a problem for the future,” said Guardiola after the cup victory over Burnley. “People will soon expect three or four goals from him every game and that will of course not happen.”
“I know he doesn’t worry about it himself. Erlin is so positive, so optimistic. He never complains and always takes care of himself,” Guardiola continued. “That attitude obviously helps him enormously. And to think he only played an hour against Leipzig and Burnley… If we play well, Erling will score the goals.”
Haaland himself revealed his ‘secret’ to his scoring drive: just don’t think about scoring. “I like to score goals, but I’m not focused on that,” the Norwegian claimed.”My focus is on creating opportunities. If I get chances, there is a good chance that I will score.”
Haller surprised by criticism: “Forgetting the past months would be a mistake”
We shift our focus from a former Dortmund striker to a current one. With two goals, Sébastien Haller contributed to Borussia Dortmund’s big 6-1 victory over 1. FC Köln on Saturday. The striker could use these goals, because he had been dry for a while. That caused some criticism in the German press: something that Haller was surprised about.
Haller has only been playing official matches for Borussia Dortmund since this calendar year, after he was diagnosed with testicular cancer last summer. The striker won the battle against the disease and is now the regular man in the point at BVB. However, he has not yet scored many goals: before Saturday, Haller only scored against SC Freiburg in twelve games for Dortmund.
In the German media, experts criticized Haller’s lack of goals. However, the striker emphasized after his double hit on Saturday that he is especially happy that he is back on the field at all.
“If you think that after three weeks everything from the previous six months has been forgotten, that would be a huge mistake,” the Frenchman told Sport. “I am happy to be here and to be able to play football again at all. This is all a bonus to me.”
Haller emphasizes that he is not yet in his old form: “I have patience. Of course it’s not easy if I don’t play and I don’t score, but I’ve only played a few games with the team. I need some time, but I’m optimistic.
