Pep Guardiola 'never wanted Erling Haaland' at Manchester City

Pep Guardiola "never wanted" Erling Haaland at Manchester City as he is not a "good fit" for his way of playing, it has been claimed.

City edged out other leading European clubs to sign the Norwegian goal machine, securing his services for a fee of £51.2 million.

Haaland has scored a ridiculous 31 goals in 28 games for City, including 25 goals in his first 20 Premier League games.

He's already surpassed the Golden Boot tally for the past few seasons and still has 17 games to go in the rest of the campaign.

Yet with City struggling in recent times, many say Haaland has actually made City a worse team. It's a point Jamie Carragher raised after City lost 1-0 at Spurs and Haaland failed to muster a shot on goal during the game.

Carragher believes Haaland might just have picked the wrong club and that he doesn't completely suit their slow, patient build-up.

But his former Liverpool colleague Dietmar Hamann has followed up on that and said Haaland, who banged in 86 goals in 89 games for Borussia Dortmund is not a good fit for City as he is "everything the team isn't and because of his lack of touches, City are "almost playing with ten men".

Image: Alamy

He feels as though Haaland has ruined the fluidity of the City side and will not improve them in the long-term.

Speaking on talkSPORT, former City midfielder Hamann said: “Haaland’s strength is the opposite of what City’s strength is. "City were successful because they retained the ball, they had rhythm, they had fluidity in their game and they shared goals.

"Now you’ve got a player who a lot of the time in their matches hardly takes part, it’s almost like playing with ten men. I don’t care how many goals he scores or how many hat-tricks he scores, you need to see how many goals the team scores. I think they’ve scored less goals at the same stage of last season and have got less points.

“I don’t think that Haaland is a player that fits into the team because he’s everything the team isn’t. He’s good when you play quickly – at Dortmund he scored his goals after they turned over the ball, played three or four passes and the ball was in the back of the net.

“With City they pass the ball 30/40 times before breaking the team down and that’s not his game. I don’t think long-term he will improve City’s team and that’s their biggest problem."

Hamann went on to add that Guardiola did not want the former Red Bull Salzburg man and cited his previous treatment of traditional central strikers.

Image: Alamy

He believes City's thought process was that they could get him for less then his market value and sell him for profit.

He continued: “I never thought he was going to go to City because he’s a player Guardiola never wanted. Every centre forward was sent away from Barcelona, at times he played Robert Lewandowski on the left at Bayern Munich, Gabriel Jesus played out wide most of the time.

“Maybe they thought ‘there’s a player who we get for £50-60 million and he’s twice or treble that, we have to buy him’. Would he be a benefit for Chelsea or Manchester United? Yes, I think so. Would he have scored the same goals for them? I don’t know, probably not because at City he gets more chances than for these teams but I don’t think he’s a good fit for Manchester City.”

City look to get back to winning ways against Aston Villa on Sunday, with Haaland also no doubt desperate to be back on the scoresheet.

Topics: Manchester City, Pep Guardiola, Erling Haaland, Premier League

Josh Lawless

Josh is a sports journalist who specialises in football and wrestling. He has been published by Curzon Ashton FC, Late Tackle, Manchester City FC, The Mirror, Read Man City and Manchester Evening News. He provides coverage of professional wrestling and has interviewed some of the biggest names in the field - including the first UK interview with The Hardy Boyz after their return to WWE. He has never sported a pair of Lonsdale Slip-ons, contrary to reports.

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