Former head Molde scout John Vik has explained how Ole Gunnar Solskjaer contacted Manchester United about Erling Haaland prior to his rise to stardom.
The Manchester City striker has netted 12 times in seven matches since the start of the season, including back-to-back hat-tricks against Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest. He arrived at the Etihad after netting 86 goals in 89 games for Borussia Dortmund, whom he comes up against for the first time since his exit in Wednesday’s Champions League clash.
Prior to his incredible Bundesliga stint, Haaland shot into the headlines at RB Salzburg following a successful breakthrough at Molde, where he played 50 times under former United boss Solskjaer. He had been tracked by a number of Premier League clubs as a teenager including United and Arsenal.
READ MORE: What Ole Gunnar Solskjaer told Erling Haaland after Man City move
However, scouts were of the view that he would only be “a target man because he was so big,” Vik told the Athletic. He outlined how Solskjaer subscribed to his personal opinion that he would become much more than that, and so agreed to call United about him.
“Me and Ole understood that this kid was so good we were not going to be able to keep him,” he added. “Ole agreed with absolutely everything. ‘I will put a phone call in’, he said, ‘they need to hear about this kid’.
“We had friends at United. I used to work closely with United, in the early 2000s, and most of the guys I knew had gone. But Ole was Ole. I said, ‘call Nicky Butt (then United’s head of academy), or call somebody, because this kid is unreal’.
“This was even before Erling had really started to play for Molde properly. Ole put the phone call in. So the name was put in. Then, how or whether United followed it up, I don’t know.”
READ NEXT:
