Alan Shearer is backing Erling Haaland to come out on top in any battle against Antonio Rudiger tonight, and reckons the Manchester City striker will be ‘salivating’ at the thought of locking horns with the German again.
City welcome Real Madrid to the Etihad Stadium tonight for the second leg of the Champions League semi-final.
It’s 1-1 following the first leg at the Bernabeu.
Vinicius Jr and Kevin De Bruyne both scored sensational goals, and tonight’s game promises to be a cracker.
It was a good performance from City a couple of weeks ago.
There were plenty of solid individual performances, with De Bruyne grabbing headlines for his goal. Ruben Dias was also excellent for the visitors.
One man who had a fairly quiet evening though was Haaland.
He often has quiet games for City. But that night there was to be no goal for the big man, with Real defender Rudiger keeping him in check pretty well.
Rudiger was hyper-aggressive against the 22-year-old, and it allowed him to nullify the Norwegian.
But Shearer has predicted that tonight Rudiger won’t be quite as effective. The Premier League’s all-time top goalscorer is backing Haaland to win that particular battle, and reckons he’ll be salivating about facing the former Chelsea man.
He wrote in his column for The Athletic: “Secondly, 35 of Erling’s goals this season have come at the Etihad and I predict Wednesday’s fixture will be a very different proposition to the first leg. Anybody can have a quiet night, anybody can have an off-day, but keeping Haaland quiet for two games is another matter; all it takes is one chance and bang, he’s got you. I can guarantee you he won’t have lost a second of sleep about it. He’ll be salivating.”
Erling Haaland vs Antonio Rudiger will be a fascinating battle once again as Manchester City seek to beat Real Madrid in Champions League semi-final
Many eyes will be on these two players in particular tonight after their battle at the Bernabeu.
It is probably fair to say that Rudiger won the first time around.
But Haaland will be so up for it tonight and will be determined the get the better of him this time, if Carlo Ancelotti starts him.
Rudiger will likely try to be really aggressive again. And Haaland needs to try and find away of countering that.
Hopefully, Shearer’s prediction will ring true, Haaland will score and City will go through to the final against Inter Milan.
Edit: Antonio Rudiger has been named on the Real Madrid bench tonight by Carlo Ancelotti.
