Erling Haaland has freed up Manchester City's creative players with his willingness to work without the ball.
Pep Guardiola has overseen two league titles playing effectively without a proper No.9 striker, winning in 2021 while Sergio Aguero was injured for the majority of the campaign before defending their crown despite not replacing the club record scorer after letting him leave on a free transfer. Haaland was signed in the summer of 2022 to belatedly fill that void.
Despite the 22-year-old's incredible personal haul of 21 league goals in 15 appearances, there are question marks over whether City have improved collectively as they trail league leaders Arsenal by seven points heading into the New Year. However, the different qualities that Haaland brings have certainly taken the pressure off City's other attacking players.
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Bernardo Silva was one of those players who filled in as a false nine over the last two seasons, and said that he and other teammates inevitably got frustrated by being unable to have as many touches as they would like or usually get. As well as setting new standards in front of goal, Haaland's presence allows others to play their more natural game.
“The thing about Erling is that he doesn’t care about touching the ball," he said. "He is one of those players that for example if you play me as a false nine or Phil Foden, after a game playing in that position it is not easy because you don’t touch the ball many times and you get frustrated because you need to touch the ball to feel a part of the game.
"The good thing about Erling is that he is there and if he doesn’t touch the ball for 30 minutes, but he touches it once and he scores, he is happy and delighted. To have that kind of player who is so focused on just the end of the product is great because he knows what he is there for and he does it perfectly.
"Just the hunger that he has to score more and more and more. You saw that he scored two [against Leeds] and he wasn’t happy because he could have scored more in that game.
"It is just crazy because any other player if they scored two goals would be over the moon, but he was happy and not totally happy because he felt he could have scored more which shows how ambitious he is, how focused he is to help the team and to be better every day. I am very happy we have a player like that.”
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