Pep Guardiola insists Erling Haaland's goalscoring instincts are entirely natural but believes he is already seeing the Norwegian become more involved in Manchester City's build-up play. Haaland now has a staggering 17 goals in 11 games for the Blues and his hat-trick in his first Manchester derby was his third straight treble at the Etihad in the Premier League.
The 22-year-old is breaking records by the week since his £51million move from Borussia Dortmund and his goalscoring record throughout his career has been sensational.
But the forward is starting to become more involved in City 's play and having lasted 90 minutes in the 6-3 win against United, Guardiola was pleased with how involved he stayed in the game.
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"What I like in the last period of the game is he is involved. He said ‘I prefer to touch the ball five times and score five goals’. I don’t like that, I want him to touch the ball more and more," said Guardiola.
"So he became a football player to score goals. I like that he’s part more for the situations, but don’t forget his biggest talent is to put the ball in the net."
Putting the ball in the net is becoming easy for Haaland in this City team, but Guardiola insists he's done nothing to fine-tune those goalscoring instincts with his new centre-forward.
"What he has done today, Erling has done in Norway, in Austria and in Germany, that is the reality. He came and realised ‘oh, these guys, my mates, run like an animal and I have to do it too'," he said.
"Of course, the quality we have alongside him helps him to score goals. But what he has done, I didn’t teach him once. When the ball is right, and he attacks the box, how he moves behind the central defender away from the action, he has incredible instincts that the ball will arrive there and it comes from his mum and dad, he was born with that and just to help him produce more goals."
Haaland has scored in eight successive games for City now and only Bournemouth have stopped him scoring in the Premier League.
Guardiola has promised to rotate his side for the Champions League game against FC Copenhagen at the Etihad on Wednesday and there is no guarantee Haaland will start.
"He will have a break, with the games that he’s going to play," he said. "Now we are lucky. Last season he could not play many games, he was injured all the time.
"Arrive here and we have incredible physios, thanks to them he can play every 90 minutes. One of the most important departments is the doctors and physios and they help, so thank you to them. Last season Dortmund couldn’t do it but we can do it."
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