Guardiola Explains Why He Denied Erling Haaland’s Double Hat-trick Chance During Man City’s Champions League Demolition of RB Leipzig
Pep Guardiola explained why he denied Erling Haaland the chance to score a double hat-trick for Manchester City in the Champions League against their massive 7-0 win against Leipzig.
The Norwegian scoring machine was at his brilliant best against RB Leipzig in the Champions League as he scored five in Manchester City’s 7-0 win to ease them into the quarter-finals.
Halaand became the third player to score five goals in a Champions League fixture after Lionel Messi (for Barcelona against Bayer Leverkusen) and Luiz Adriano (for Shakhtar Donetsk against Bate Borisov).
However, Guardiola subbed him off in the 63rd minute and introduced Julian Alvarez, which prevented the chance for Halaand to score a historic double hat-trick.
Guardiola’s Reaction After The Game
When asked about Halaand’s substitution after the match, Guardiola said that “If he achieves this milestone at 22, 23, it will be boring for his life as he wouldn’t have a target to reach in the future. That’s why I made the substitution.
“I didn’t know about Messi with Leverkusen (when he scored five against them in 2012), but I make a substitution because normally when the game is over we want them to play. He scored five goals. The problem is every time we don’t score two or three he will be criticized. This is the reality.”
Guardiola Also Spoke On Haland’s Movements During the Game
Guardiola also highlighted Haaland’s movement on the pitch, which allowed him to be more involved in the game and praised him for helping out defensively.
Guardiola said, “Today he scored five and made 30-35 ball contacts. This is what we’re looking for. When you’re involved in a game defensively, the ball comes to you for scoring goals and you’re more clever and more precise. Like Gundogan scores goals, he can do it but sometimes it’s his fault that he doesn’t move.
“For example at Crystal Palace he didn’t move, I said ‘you didn’t play good today’. Other days it is our fault like in Leipzig we didn’t find him. Sooner or later, we’re working a bit, everyone try to make the process quicker.
Once we break the holding midfielder, we have to be quicker. People think it depends on the line-up we’ll play slowly, comfortably. The mentality has always been to be aggressive. Sometimes we cannot do it because the opponent is there.”
Up Next For Halaand And City
After a spectacular performance in the Champions League, Haaland and City will shift their focus to an FA Cup quarter-final fixture against Burnley on Saturday. City are also looking for the Premier League title but will have to chase Arsenal down who are at the top of the table with a 5 points lead above City.
