Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola would have delighted to witness another Erling Haaland masterclass during his side’s 2-1 win against Brentford.
Haaland (nine) broke Wayne Rooney’s (eight) record of scoring the most goals after the first four games of a Premier League season with his latest brace.
During several periods of the contest, Manchester City were under the cosh.
Ahead of the contest, many would have assumed that due to the fact that the game was at the Etihad Stadium, the hosts would have got over the line without breaking a sweat.
However, Thomas Frank’s side seem to guarantee on most matchdays that win, lose or draw, they will give the opposition a tough day at the office.
The Bees did just that despite losing to Pep Guardiola’s side.
Guardiola reveals tactic Man City “should use” for their superstar after Brentford win
Often, Manchester City resorted to punting the ball long to find their star striker.
On other occasions, it seemed like the Sky Blues were trying their best to feed Haaland the ball as quickly as possible.
The £375,000-a-week man hold-up and link-up was largely quite tidy against Brentford.
In the build-up to the 24-year-old’s second goal where he outmuscled Ethan Pinnock, City scored a rare route one goal as Ederson Moraes hoofed the ball up the pitch.
After Manchester City defeated Brentford, Pep Guardiola stressed the importance of his side ensuring Haaland is in one-v-one situations behind the opposition defence.
Guardiola said via BeanymanSports: “For us. he’s an incredible weapon. When he is one against one, when you isolate him with a central defender, with the quality that you have with Ederson and Stefan [Ortega] for the long balls and long passes, so he’s a weapon that we have to explore, we should use it.”
Erling Haaland is ice-cold in such situations as well
One reason why the Manchester City players should act on Pep Guardiola’s advice is due to how clinical Haaland has been in front of goal this season.
The sole reason why City took the lead against Brentford in the first-half itself was due to the Norwegian international tucking away the two chances he got.
For his second goal, one could even state that Haaland had too much time on his hands.
However, the Leeds-born marksman’s calmness was evident when he took an additional touch to set himself up before taking his goal with perfection.
As a result, any measure that Manchester City could take to supply one-v-one chances for Haaland is one that they should constantly explore.
