Rio Ferdinand and Owen Hargreaves both believe Jurgen Klopp would agree that Erling Haaland could be the man to fire Manchester City to Champions League glory this season.
Haaland joined City in the summer from Borussia Dortmund in a deal worth £51m. The Etihad club paid the 21-year-old's release clause and expect to pay £85.5m in total when agent fees, signing bonus and other costs are taken into account.
The Norwegian striker took his tally to 12 for the season after just seven games following a brace against Sevilla last night - and has now scored 25 goals in 20 Champions League games in his career — the fastest player ever to reach the milestone in the competition.
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And speaking after the game at the Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan Stadium, Ferdinand claimed Haaland is a huge upgrade on Gabriel Jesus - who departed City for Arsenal in the summer following the the 22-year-old's arrival - as he and Hargreaves sent a warning to Liverpool and other clubs.
"When you haven’t got that threat and I’m not discrediting like a Jesus, who is a threat, but there is a difference in I think between the levels of threat and the levels of fear certain players give you," he told BT Sport.
“When there’s that fear factor that he has right now and he’s going to continue to have, that attracts defenders - and two people.
“A lot of defenders will go ‘I can’t do this on my own’ and in the training room before the game will be going to their teammates ‘listen if he gets me in a one vs one, you get over quick, you get over quick’.
“Whereas some players when you get one vs one you stay where you are, you are confident you can deal with him. There’s not going to be many who say that about Erling Haaland.”
Before Hargreaves said: “When you see some of the fees and you think some guys are costing £30m, £40m and £50m and he [Haaland] only cost what he did, I don’t know how. He obviously had a buy-out clause but the guy is amazing.
“He’s the perfect player. I can understand why we’re all getting carried away because we should be. He’s got 12 goals and it’s the first week of September. So blown away by how good he is.”
He then continued: “I think Haaland going there, everyone, all of us, I’m sure Pep, even Klopp and Tuchel, that’s the missing piece of the puzzle.
“It’s worked this fast, this quickly. They’ve had more possession in the games which means more touches for De Bruyne and Bernardo Silva. They look a threat.
"They’re scoring lethal goals and like Rio said in one off games like a Champions League finals, you need someone to sniff a goal and you can guarantee he’s going to do that.”
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