Manchester City head coach Pep Guardiola admitted that his team needs to get Erling Haaland more involved in the game. The Norwegian striker played a small part in Saturday’s 2-1 Premier League derby loss to Manchester United with just 19 total touches and a couple of half-chances. Even though Haaland only played in the game against Southampton as a substitute, his three-game goalless streak represents a step back for a man who had 27 goals in his first 21 appearances. Haaland’s influence on City’s approach, though, has been more apparent after they mastered the use of a false nine during the course of the previous two seasons. Even if he is unlikely to agree, Guardiola is still working to thoroughly integrate his £51 million summer signing.
“We now employ that strategy, but we do need to find him a little bit more since it is more challenging when teams are situated in their 18-yard boxes,” Pep Guardiola said about Erling Haaland. “He had enough touches against United, but it is true that you must include him when assessing regions. However, we’ll manage to complete it.”
Since the World Cup, City has battled to maintain consistency, drawing at home against Everton on New Year’s Day before losing consecutive games against Southampton in the Carabao Cup and Manchester United in the league. Guardiola, though, argued that such discrepancies were not the result of a system change brought about by Haaland’s hiring. At Old Trafford, City took the lead, but following Bruno Fernandes’ contentious equalizer, they were unable to recover, and Marcus Rashford scored the game-winning goal just four minutes later. Despite his dissatisfaction with the result and his anger at the decision to sustain Fernandes’ goal, Guardiola was much more pleased with the performance than the result.
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