Stopping Erling Haaland might sound like an impossible task but Everton’s centre-backs should relish the challenge and with Yerry Mina now back in the team alongside James Tarkowski, Sean Dyche has the ideal pair to try and get under the prolific Manchester City striker’s skin.
Yerry is the master at it, he loves it. He seems to be a very likeable character around Finch Farm and all the other players get on with him as he’s something of a joker who likes to play football with a smile on his face but he also likes to wind up the opposition.
Playing against someone who has been on form all season, scoring goals for fun is the ultimate test. But we know Haaland can have quiet games, sometimes he hardly touches the ball and can get frustrated when he has one or two markers on him.
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Tarkowski did well at times against him at the Etihad and there was one moment when Haaland ran away from the Everton centre-back when he chased him after the striker had gone in hard on Vitalii Mykolenko and was booked. I think if you add Mina to the mix, he’d love that battle and they can handle the physicality of stop strikers like Haaland.
We all know Haaland is a beast – he’s strong, fast, he’s got everything – but as a defender these battles are what you want, you don’t want an easy game, you want an opportunity to showcase your skill-set against the best in the world. Manchester City will dictate and have a lot of the ball but if you have leaders like Mina communicating and keeping it tight, forcing the opposition out wide so they have to put crosses in, you’d back him and Tarkowski to win most battles.
Teams do not want to come to Goodison Park, whether you’re a team at the bottom or even Manchester City. Pep Guardiola already said that this could be the most difficult week of his life with two Champions League semi-final legs against Real Madrid either side of coming to Everton, which he admitted in some ways could still be the hardest one.
That’s credit to the home fans but they need an Everton team who are at it and can make things really uncomfortable for the opposition because we’re still fighting for our lives in the Premier League. As a professional footballer you want to play against the best players and this is an opportunity to do it against perhaps the best team in the world, it’s a challenge you should cherish and enjoy.
It’s going to be similar against City to Brighton as we’re not going to have a lot of the ball so we need to get our distances right when defending and communication will be the key but try and win your battles. If you start hurting them then doing it again, they’re only human and might have an off day – after all we beat Manchester City 4-0 at Goodison Park on Guardiola’s first visit.
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