Erling Haaland said he had been brought in to Manchester City to win the Champions League, but stopped short of saying whether the Blues can be considered favourites or not after their ruthless win over RB Leipzig.
Haaland scored a remarkable five goals to set records tumbling in a one-sided second leg of the last-16 tie after a first leg where the striker couldn't even get on the ball. City recorded a 7-0 win at the Etihad to progress 8-1 on aggregate, and Haaland was understandably the man of the moment after the game.
In one interview, he suggested that he is well aware that he was bought to help City end their Champions League duck, although he has now admitted it's too early to consider the Blues favourites.
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Describing the win as a 'statement' of City's intent, Haaland did back his side to challenge for the Champions League title - but only if they take their minds off a potential final and focus solely on the quarter-finals.
"To go through in the Champions League is a fantastic feeling and to do it in this way is even better," he reflected. "To win 7-0 at home – wow, it’s fantastic. It’s an unreal feeling – I’m really proud to score five goals. You saw a hungry Manchester City team that made a statement. I’m really proud of the whole team.
“I don’t want to speak about being the favourites. We have to take it game by game. There are potentially five games left and we’ll see in the end. I think City has the potential to go all the way – of course it’s difficult but if we do good in five games it might be enough, it might not, who knows."
Becoming just the third man to score five goals in a Champions League game, making him the quickest and youngest player to reach 30 goals in the competition, Haaland was asked if his five-goal haul was his best game of his career.
“Yes, at this level but I scored nine goals in one game – that was also a good game," he said
“I don’t think about records – I focus on the next game and the next is in the FA Cup against Burnley. I’m really happy to be through and we have to focus on the next game.”
“I think I could have had more and that’s a fact. If you go through the whole game, you can see that. But we scored a lot of goals and produced many chances – that’s the most important thing. We have to keep going because we have it in us. We have to get it out in every single game.”
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