Pep Guardiola has been warned it could take Erling Haaland years to settle in at Manchester City if his teammates do not act quickly to accommodate him.
Haaland, 22, drew a blank on his competitive debut for City this Saturday afternoon when they were beaten 3-1 by Liverpool in the Community Shield. It was a game that raised questions over Haaland after his £51million move from Borussia Dortmund, but not necessarily ones for the Norwegian to answer himself.
Speaking about Haaland on radio station talkSPORT, ex-City manager Stuart Pearce said: "I don't think they utilised their centre-forward as well as they possibly can. If you asked Haaland at the end of the game; 'Did they feed you as you would have liked', I think he would probably say no.
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"He wouldn't be happy about that. He won't be feeling the pressure, but City have got to find a way to get the best out of him. They've got to pop the ball in behind. If they do that, he'll score more goals and they'll be a better team."
Pearce added: "I think it'll take him time to settle in. City play in a slightly different way, they dominate the ball more than any team in England and the one thing the opposition do is deny you space in behind.
"Haaland likes to have open spaces to run behind into and I'm not sure how much he'll get in this country [because] teams are very defensive minded and play very, very deep against a team like City. It'll be interesting to see if he can adapt to that, and the interaction between him and the players around him.
"There are a lot of intelligent players in that City team who can feed him, but they have to find him more than they have there [against Liverpool]. It might take a year or a couple of years for Haaland to properly settle in."
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