Manchester City cruised to a 3-1 win last night against FC Copenhagen in the first leg of their last 16 Champions League clash – but pundit Craig Burley reckons Erling Haaland would have been frustrated.
City have one foot in the quarter-finals, after a great performance at Parken.
Kevin De Bruyne opened the scoring, but Copenhagen then hit back against the run of play after a sloppy pass from Ederson.
Bernardo Silva then bagged a wonderful goal for the visitors just before half-time, and Phil Foden scored right at the death to hand City and important two-goal lead for the return leg.
It was a top display, but for Craig Burley, Erling Haaland would have been a frustrated man last night…
Craig Burley says Erling Haaland would have been frustrated during Copenhagen win
Last night, Haaland would have been hoping to build on the two goals he scored against Everton at the weekend.
But it was a very quiet night for the 23-year-old, who was rather feeding off scraps.
He didn’t really have any clear-cut chances. Burley feels he was making good enough runs, but he just wasn’t being found by his teammates.
He said on ESPN FC: “I see some frustration, particularly early on in the game in Erling Haaland. They do so much with the ball around the field from side to side and he’s making a lot of runs. They don’t like to force a pass, they don’t always look for that pass. I think there is some frustration there from his perspective.
“He has to almost bite his tongue sometimes, because as a striker, you always think you’ve made the right run for the right pass. He’s making a lot of runs but that’s the way Man City play. Sometimes he’s not really heavily involved. As long as he can accept that and it seems like he has, and he pops up and gets his quarter of goals in the big games at the right time, I don’t think it’ll be a problem.
“But certainly from a front man’s perspective, I can imagine it can be pretty frustrating.”
Frustration for Haaland, but it’s about the team
Haaland constantly makes runs for City and he often gets ignored, which probably can be quite frustrating.
But there is no arguing that he’s been a resounding success since he signed and his goal record speaks for itself.
Ultimately, it’s about City as a team. When Haaland doesn’t score there is always talk about how quiet he was and how little impact he had, but very often other players have stepped up.
Pep Guardiola won’t mind one bit if Haaland doesn’t score so long as his team win the football match in front of them.
Although it’s probably annoying in the moment when it happens, Haaland probably won’t mind too much either in the grand scheme of things, knowing what a top mentality he has.
