“If he gets there at 22 his life will be boring,” smiles Guardiola who cut Haaland in his tracks with a record 6th goal

The day before the match, Pep Guardiola had stressed that he expected more from Erling Haaland (“I don’t like a player just scoring goals in the box“). The Manchester City manager who beat Leipzig 7-0 in the round of 16 second leg of the Champions League, spoke at a press conference about the performance of his Norwegian striker Erling Haaland, author of 5 goals and total involvement: “What to say ? The problem is that as soon as he does not score two or three goals in a match, he is criticized. He’s a huge competitor, he’s scored five goals and that’s not easy. Today he scored 5 goals in 30 or 35 touches of the ball, that’s what we want. It’s hard to score when you don’t touch enough balls and sometimes it was his fault because he doesn’t move enough, but sometimes it was ours, like in the second half in Leipzig. And sometimes you can’t do it because the opponent is there. The problem has never been to score goals here (at City), but not to concede them because often we have given them. There (the defenders) have been so solid and stable, that’s what we need in this competition. (On the replacement of Haaland who could become the first player to score 6 times in a C1 match) If he gets there at 22, his life will be boring. Now he can do it in the future. No I made the change because the match was over“.