Pundit Paul Merson has backed Manchester City striker Erling Haaland to score a hat-trick against Brighton & Hove Albion in the Premier League this weekend.
Following the latest international break, the Citizens are back in action tomorrow with a home clash against Roberto De Zerbi’s side.
Looking ahead to this match, one pundit has shared his thoughts on what this game could hold for one specific City player in particular.
Merson drops Haaland claim ahead of Brighton clash
Written in his weekly column for Sportskeeda where he previewed this weekend’s Premier League games, Merson had this to say about Haaland and what he could do in Saturday’s clash against Brighton.
He said: “Erling Haaland is not getting a load of chances, but he’s still got eight goals in eight games. He’s set such a high bar for himself. Defenders are marking him well, and they know what he’s good at now.
“I think he’ll still be all right this season, and I won’t be surprised if he gets a hat-trick this weekend. This dip in form won’t affect him.”
The 23-year-old failed to score a goal in City’s two previous Premier League games against Wolves and Arsenal, both of which they lost.
However, having scored two goals for Norway during the recent international break in their 4-0 win over Cyprus, this should put the centre-forward in a good position to get back to his goalscoring ways for his club.
With eight league goals under his belt this season, as Merson mentioned, Haaland has had more shots on target (15) than any other player in the division, in addition to having the joint-third highest rate of shots on target per 90 minutes (1.91).
This makes it easy to see why Merson thinks the current Golden Boot holder could make himself a real nuisance for Brighton tomorrow, especially since the Seagulls have failed to keep a clean sheet in any of their eight league games in this campaign.
Moving forward, if the striker is able to add more goals to his tally for the season against Brighton tomorrow, he’ll undoubtedly give his side a great chance of getting back to winning ways and put the poor run of form they were on before the international break behind them.
