Erling Haaland has admitted he was brought to Manchester City to deliver them the Champions League.
Haaland fired Pep Guardiola 's side into the quarter-finals of the competition with five goals in City's 7-0 demolition of RB Leipzig at the Etihad Stadium on Tuesday. Norway striker Haaland became City's record scorer for a single season, taking his tally to 39 from 36 games, surpassing Tommy Johnson's 94-year record.
The Champions League is the one prize to so far elude City and Haaland, a £52million summer signing from Borussia Dortmund, acknowledged that ending the drought was the reason he was signed.
Haaland, who has 33 goals from 25 Champions League games, said: “It’s a difficult question. I could easily make headlines with this answer. Of course the club wants to win the Champions League. They’ve won four out of the last five Premier League titles.
“They didn’t bring me in to win the Premier League, because they already know how to win it. So you can read between the lines. I’m here to try to help the club develop even more and to win the Champions League for the first time.”
Haaland, 22, said City's emphatic win over Leipzig sent out a message to the rest of Europe ahead of tomorrow's quarter-final draw and claimed he could have scored even more.
He also warned he can get even better, claiming there are areas of his game he can improve on, in particular being more clinical with his left foot and scoring more headers.
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“The feeling is amazing,” said Haaland. “It’s a statement to the tournament, a tournament I love. A statement that we can actually score seven goals. It’s an easy thing to say, but I could’ve scored more goals. I missed a lot of chances. But the chances kept coming.
“In the first-half I could have scored more. I had one with the goalkeeper and I could have had two more in the first-half, so there were possibilities. In my mind, I always have to reach for more and stay hungry. Maybe somebody, if they score five goals, they are happy.
“You have to be happy, but you have to want more, of course. I can get better at everything. I’ve missed a lot of chances with my left foot. I have to be much better.
“Heading, combining, everything. But if I had to pick one, it's to help the players get better. This is something I would love. To put people into better positions, dropping in to put them in better positions.”
Haaland said he knew he was going to score a bundle of goals for City, after watching them create so many chances last season, without a recognised striker to finish them.
“I knew I was going to score goals because, last season, how many did they score? Probably 100,” said Haaland.
“When I saw them without a striker and they were crossing the ball in, I was like ‘ah, I’d love to be there! I knew I would score a lot of goals. There's so much potential in this team and I think we can improve a lot.”
