After two games where he has missed a plethora of good chances, will the goals come from Erling Haaland today against Nottingham Forest? City’s goalscoring machine has been unusually wasteful in front of goal in the past two games. But there is a feeling that someone will cop a handful from Haaland soon enough.
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has cautioned the media of criticizing Erling Haaland. He warned the media they’ll be forced to apologize when the goals start flowing for Haaland. He said: “He has had incredible chances, and he could have scored 14-15 goals now. What is important is he always says, ‘I have the chance, I have the chance, I have the chance. The problem is when I do not have chances, or I do not get balls, or I am in the wrong position. My advice is don’t criticize Erling too much. Criticize the full-back, the central defender or the manager, but never, never the striker who scored all those goals because he will and then you will be in a position where you have to apologize to him.”
As Guardiola stated, Haaland is still getting in the right positions and the chances are being created. At some point, the goals will flow and the concern of chances being missed by City’s number 9 will be forgotten.
Haaland has already scored 7 league goals in 5 games to start the Premier League season. While he has missed some gilt-edged chances against West Ham and Red Star Belgrade he is still scoring at a good rate. The fact Erling Haaland’s standards are so high invites criticism when he does miss a few chances.
With Nottingham Forest set to visit the Etihad today, could it be the day when we see another Haaland hat trick?
