Is Erling Haaland undroppable at Manchester City?
Haaland scored his fourth hat-trick of the season to take his tally to 31 goals in all competitions in 2022-23.
Pep Guardiola says Erling Haaland is undroppable after the Norwegian scored another hat-trick as Manchester City beat Wolves 3-0 in the Premier League on Sunday.
Haaland scored his fourth hat-trick of the season to take his tally to 31 goals in all competitions this season.
Guardiola had a pop at his side for their recent displays after City needed to come back from 2-0 down to beat Tottenham last Thursday.
Despite Haaland’s 25 league goals, there have been questions over City’s style syncing with the goalscoring machine.
Pep can’t afford to drop Haaland
“When he scores I don’t know how many hat-tricks and goals, (people say) he is the solution in our team and when he does not score a goal he is a problem in our team. This is a grey vision of this kind of things,” Guardiola said.
“We know his quality, we know each other. He is not a player to be dropped. We cannot play a false nine with him, we have to adapt with him and I think we are doing quite well.”
“Happy flowers team”
Guardiola had asked for more from his squad recently, adding that they improve and stop playing like a “happy flowers team”.
Against Wolves at the Etihad on Sunday, City had Haaland to thank as he netted the quick-fire hat-trick before being substituted for World Cup winner Julián Álvarez.
“Today we improved but it was just today, we will see what happens in the next games,” Guardiola explained.
“People will see the goals from Erling, the assists from Kevin (De Bruyne) and the actions from Riyad (Mahrez) but there are things still to improve.”
Haaland keeps scoring
Haaland’s 25 goals in the Premier League this season means he has now overtaken last season’s Golden Boot winners Mohamed Salah and Son Heung-Min, who both scored 23 goals in the 2021-22 campaign. How could you drop him?