Pep Guardiola put Haaland on the same pedestal as Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo and said the Norwegian was so dominant that it didn’t matter that City’s other forwards were not contributing many goals this season. No City player aside from Haaland has scored more than one Premier League goal this season.

“It’s a little like when you play with Messi or Cristiano,” Guardiola said. “The influence is so big. Of course we need the goals from Phil [Foden] and Tijjani [Reijnders] and the other ones.” 

Asked whether Haaland was truly on the same level as Messi and Ronaldo, Guardiola had no doubts at all. “Has he reached that level? You see the numbers of that guy? Oh my God, yeah, of course he’s at their level. So the numbers from Cristiano and Messi have been for 15 years. You see Messi still in MLS, he scores two or three goals every day. Cristiano in Saudi is the same. But he [Haaland] is at that level.  

“The first goal, the way he shoots the ball, going down on the grass [saying] ‘I am going to score this’. I have said many times, he is incredibly coachable and I am tough with him sometimes. I always try to be open minded with him and there are players who say, ‘What are you talking about?’ He is completely down to earth, he wants to do it and he lives for the goals. Without him, it would be tough to be honest.”