The 22-year-old Norwegian striker Erling Haaland is the hottest prospect in entire Europe right now. For the past few years, he has displayed tremendous goal-scoring form for the past few years.
After 5 goals everybody anticipated that Haaland was destined to get his double hat trick in UCL. He was close to scoring six goals in a single match against RB Leipzig in UEFA Champions League. But Pep Guardiola denied him of this opportunity by substituting him in the 63rd minute of the game.
In the post-match conference, Manchester City Manager Pep Guardiola revealed his intentions behind this move.
"If he achieves this milestone at 22, 23, it will be boring his life. He wouldn't have a target to reach in the future. Here and everywhere. That's why I make a substitution. I didn't know about Messi with Leverkusen (when he scored five against them in 2012), but I make a substitution because normally when the game is over we want them to play. He scored five goals. The problem is every time we don't score two or three he will be criticised. This is the reality," Pep said.
"Today he scored five but touched 30-35 ball contacts. This is what we're looking for. When you're involved in a game defensively, the ball comes to score goals you're more clever, more precise. Gundogan scores goals, he can do it. Sometimes it's his fault, sometimes he doesn't move," Pep continued.
Throughout this season Erling Haaland's goal-scoring capability has outclassed the goal-scoring capability of an entire team. His recent goal drought gave critics an opportunity to raise some doubts over Haaland's tenure in Premier League. But last night he managed to put all the doubts surrounding him back to their respective graves.
Haaland can now feature for Manchester City on Saturday in their FA Cup quarter-final against former Manchester City club legend Vincent Komany's Burnley.
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