Manchester City’s manager, Pep Guardiola, believes that Erling Haaland shares Lionel Messi’s hunger for goals. However, he cautioned against comparing the Norwegian striker to arguably the greatest player of all time.
Haaland scored a penalty in Manchester City’s 2-1 victory against Fulham on Sunday, taking his goal tally for the season to 50, including 34 goals in the Premier League. This equals the competition record set by Andy Cole and Alan Shearer.
Between 2010 and 2019, Messi scored 50 or more club goals six times. Guardiola was the Argentinian’s coach at Barcelona when Messi scored 73 goals in the 2011-12 season. When asked if Haaland’s desire to score was at the same level as Messi’s, Guardiola urged caution in making comparisons.
“In terms of goals and mentality, yeah,” he said. “But Messi has done it every season in the last 10-15. Erling since he started at Salzburg has got to the same level in terms of goals. It’s almost every game, he scores a goal.
“Messi Is The Most Complete Player”
“One or two every game, he had the chances to do it, but Messi is the most complete player I have seen in terms of vision, dribbles, passes, competitiveness, in many things that are difficult. Hopefully Erling can be so close [to] Leo – that will be great for us and him.”
City have six league matches remaining, the first of which is West Ham’s visit to the Etihad Stadium on Wednesday. Pep Guardiola was asked what his priority is when instructing his players during the run-in.
“My main role I think is telling them that if you are tired, you’re wrong,” he said. “You are not tired. When you are winning games, I felt it as a player – and at Barcelona and Bayern Munich as a manager who is dreaming of ‘winning the title’ – [the players] feel the same.