SCOTLAND assistant manager John Carver is hoping Jack Grealish will keep Manchester City teammate Erling Haaland out on the town for a few days longer before reporting for international duty, joking that he is partying harder than the Scots did when they qualified for the European Championships.
The City squad have been celebrating from Istanbul to Ibiza and back to Manchester since winning the Champions League Final on Saturday night, with Haaland at the centre of the festivities despite the Norwegian superstar having a crunch match against Scotland in Oslo this weekend.
And Carver hopes that his City teammates will ensure that the Scottish defenders aren’t the only headache the striker has to deal with at the Ullevaal Stadion
“Jack will look after him!” Carver said.
“I said that before, it’s like, ‘Is he still partying?’. He's had more parties than we did when we qualified for Euro 2020!
“Listen, he’s a professional - surely he’s looked after himself. Let’s see what he’s like when he gets there.
“He is a machine. He’s a goalscoring machine. That’s what he does. He scores goals and that’s what you want from a centre-forward, isn’t it?”
“He’s a super player for sure but they’ll be worried about some of our players as well.
“When you see the way we played [against Spain]...(Scott) McTominay for example – I mentioned him because he scored in the last two games – he’ll be aware of him. They’ll be concerned about him.
“They’ll be concerned about John McGinn, his form for Aston Villa. Because he’ll [Norway manager Stale Solbakken] be watching the Premier League.
“That’s just to name two, you know. He’ll look at some of the other players in the team. They’ll have their concerns about us and I’m guessing they’ll just concentrate on themselves, like we’ll concentrate on our strengths.”
On a more serious note, Carver does think it may be difficult for Haaland to maintain the astonishingly high levels of performance he has set during the course of the season, with the post-season international tie perhaps something of a comedown for him after winning the FA Cup, the Premier League and the Champions League in a hectic finale to the campaign.
“It could be,” he said. “Listen, it’s possible.
“Let’s see. He’s won the Treble and had a fantastic season. Sometimes it’s very difficult keeping yourself at that level all of the time.”
