Pep Guardiola has explained how both Manchester City and Erling Haaland changed their approach to get the best out of the Norwegian striker this season.
Haaland has been a goal-scoring machine for City since joining from Borussia Dortmund last summer. The Norwegian has bagged a remarkable 52 goals across all competitions with City on the brink of securing a historic treble.
With the Premier League and FA Cup successes already secured, City now have eyes on their first ever Champions League crown. Haaland may well prove pivotal once more as Guardiola’s side take on Italian giants Inter in Saturday night’s final in Istanbul.
Despite his huge volume of goals for City this campaign, many of those strikes came in remarkable runs of form broken up by clusters of games when he did not find the net. The 22-year-old did not score in any of the first four games after the turn of the year, and from late January scored just once in six matches.
Haaland then found the net in a February win at Bournemouth, and a run starting in early March saw him bag a remarkable 15 goals in just six appearances – including a five-goal haul against RB Leipzig in the Champions League Round of 16.
When asked by Thierry Henry for CBS Sports on how Haaland’s game has evolved this season, Guardiola replied: “Before, the team were not looking for him. We saw a lot of clips before the Bournemouth game, and I told them to look at the team shape and Erling is hope.
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“So we had a machine and when you put the ball in a certain place he is unstoppable, but the first thing is you have to look at him. Since then, he was more involved and in part that is thanks to him but absolutely from the team.”
Guardiola added: “For Kevin (De Bruyne) his natural instinct was to look for him but even Ederson and Kyle Walker should be looking for Erling when they have the ball. If he has three opponents around him then no, but if he is free then we can pass to him.
“That (Bournemouth game) was a moment because now he is moving much better and he learned. But he still has margins to improve – he knows that and we spoke about that!”
