Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has no answer as such so as to how his new signing Erling Haaland is keeping it cool under the pressure in England. Guardiola is immensely impressed with his new signing’s dealing with the pressure since he knows there are lot of expectations from him given his potential.
Erling Haaland shrugged-off a poor start to his Manchester City career by netting twice against West Ham in their Premier League opener. The striker had earlier missed a flurry of chances on his debut against Liverpool in the Community Shield as City lost 3-1. However, Haaland kept his nerve cool to get his name on the score-sheet on his Premier League debut.
Guardiola jokes about not being with Erling Haaland all the time
Haaland has been hyped relentlessly since making his move to City from Borussia Dortmund. The fans are eagerly waiting to see if the Norwegian pays the bills or the English football turns out to be too much for him to handle. So far so good, Haaland two goals to his name in the Premier League.
The 22-year-old slotted in a penalty he won and perfectly timed his run for a Kevin de Bruyne through ball to go one-on-one with the ‘keeper, finishing-off in style to bag his second. Haaland looks determined to poach goals as he once again missed a couple of good chances to net a hat-trick.
Guardiola, who was now previewing his side’s next league game against Bournemouth was quizzed about how Erling Haaland is dealing with the pressure in England. The manager amusingly said: “I am not sleeping with him! I’m not at home with him so I don’t know how he handles it. But what I see in the training session is that he was calm after Liverpool and calm after West Ham.”
The Spaniard further went on to defend his young striker after he was slammed for his missed chances against Liverpool in the Community Shield. He said: “The moment he doesn’t score goals they are going to say maybe he’s not good. It looks like the end of the world will happen. In the bad situations everything is going bad. But you have to be calm in the bad moments and the best teams stay positive.
“He is a top striker and if you put the names of the biggest strikers of all time at that age – how many goals – he’s the greatest. But he’s still at a young age. I will encourage him to be a better player, a better finisher and [he has to] think, ‘Today I will be better than yesterday’. When this happens he has the skills to be one of the best of best top scorers of all time.”
Guardiola seems pretty calm about his new recruit as he will be banking on him to get Manchester City Champions League glory. There’s a long way to go in this season and time will tell how Erling Haaland fares in his debut season in England.