Pep Guardiola has challenged Manchester City to look for Erling Haaland more, as he offered an explanation for why the Blues kept declining opportunities to play the ball forward for their striker at RB Leipzig.
Haaland has been quiet in the last two games – at Nottingham Forest and Leipzig – and has missed good openings when they have presented themselves in City’s two away draws.
However, while his two-game goal drought has attracted criticism from outside the club, Guardiola insisted he doesn’t need metrics or analysis of Haaland’s limited touches to judge how his striker has performed.
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Taking any blame away from Haaland, Guardiola said City need to improve their service for their No.9 rather than ask him to get more involved in their play.
It’s not metrics, I don’t need metrics,” Guardiola said.
“When I finish the game, one second later I know if he was involved or not and who should be involved more or not.
I don’t need numbers or metrics, I know exactly.
Haaland appeared frustrated as players opted against playing more directly to him at Leipzig, but Guardiola said that was down to City’s game plan rather than any fault of Haaland.
“In the last game, you are right [he didn’t touch the ball enough] but against Nottingham, no, Arsenal, no,” the manager said.
We talked about that many times and it’s going to happen.
“In my period here the strikers that we had like Sergio [Aguero], Gabriel [Jesus], when we play a proper striker or false-9 or a different way, how many balls do they touch?
“It happened against Arsenal because Arsenal go man-to-man, you should play more long balls.
But you’re right, in that game we should have looked for him more but in the previous ones I don’t have that feeling.
