Pep Guardiola responds to Shearer’s Erling Haaland comparisons to Harry Kane

Pep Guardiola has said he “doesn’t know” how many goals Harry Kane would score at Manchester City and has joked “maybe Alan Shearer knows better than me”, after the former England international said Kane would score “as many goals as Erling Haaland” if he played at the Etihad.

Haaland has enjoyed a remarkable start to life at City since his transfer from Borussia Dortmund in the summer, scoring a massive 20 goals in just 12 games so far this season. The Norwegian sensation has seen the Blues finally replace Sergio Aguero after they failed to do so last year.

City attempted to sign Tottenham talisman Kane but were unsuccessful in the chase which left the door open for them to bring in Haaland 12 months later instead. However, Shearer believes that the England captain would enjoy just as much success in Guardiola’s side.

“It could all have been very different if Pep Guardiola got his way last season and they’d signed Harry Kane,” Shearer wrote in The Athletic. “There might not have been room for Haaland and he may have been carrying out these incredible goalscoring feats somewhere else. But if Harry was in this City team, he would be scoring as many goals as Erling has.”

However, Guardiola says he isn’t sure what would have happened if his club did manage to recruit Kane. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t have the ability to know what would happen if Harry Kane was here. Alan was a striker maybe he knows better than me.”

Haaland comes face-to-face with Mohamed Salah on Sunday as Manchester City lock horns with Liverpool at Anfield. The Egyptian forward has been the hallmark of consistency in recent years but has struggled for form in the Premier League in recent weeks.

As a result, Haaland has stormed ahead in the race for the Golden Boot – and is already only eight strikes away from the 23-goal tally that Salah and Son Heung-min clocked up last year.

But Guardiola has insisted that Manchester City will be taking nothing for granted when they face Salah on Sunday and predicted that the Liverpool star would return to form sooner rather than later.

“This type of players always score goals in their career,” the Spaniard said of the Egyptian. “If they are struggling a bit, sometimes not at their best the quality is there. They are so good, they scored the goals in the last game, we played many times against them, Salah scores always we know that.”