On the face of it, Erling Haaland had a fairly quiet game in Manchester City's draw at Real Madrid on Tuesday.
However, according to Real goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, Haaland's presence alone forced the Champions League holders to abandon their usual tactics and defend deeper in order to stop the striker from getting the service he is used to. As a result, Courtois noted that more space opened up for City to have shots from range, with Kevin De Bruyne and Rodri both going close before De Bruyne took aim in the second half and drew the Blues level.
Speaking to BT Sport, Courtois said: "We defended a bit more but if you want to defend against Haaland, you don't give him the space to run in the deep to find those passes that Kevin, Gundo, Bernardo [Silva] can find so we tried to avoid that.
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