Pep Guardiola claimed “people want Erling Haaland to fail” while responding to critics after his somewhat wasteful display against Young Boys.
Haaland struck twice in the second half as the holders claimed a hard-fought 3-1 win over the Swiss side in their Champions League Group G encounter on the artificial surface at Bern’s Wankdorf Stadium.
The game had been in the balance after Meschack Elia had cancelled out Switzerland international Manuel Akanji’s opener with a superb strike.
Haaland’s goals were his first in six Champions League games while his effort against Brighton on Saturday ended a three-game scoreless run – relative barren spells for a player who plundered 52 in total last season.
Haaland’s strike from the spot was his first continental goal after 543 minutes, since he scored against Bayern Munich in the second leg of the quarter-final of the previous edition.
He put plenty of power behind his penalty that squeezed through the goalkeeper’s hands, but there was plenty of finesse with his fine curling effort to kill the game for City after he saw an assist chalked off for Julian Alvarez.
“It is important to have the chances, the people want him to fail,” Guardiola told TNT Sports after the match.
“I am sorry, but this guy will score goals all his life. With the chances, he is an incredible threat. The players need the ability to find the pass like Kevin de Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan. But he is going to score until the last day he plays football.”
With 11 goals and two assists from 13 games this season, Haaland may not be as prolific as he was last season, but Guardiola insisted that the striker’s overall contributions to the team are always improving.
Elaborating on his earlier comments in his press conference, Guardiola said: “Erling has the pressure after last season but he has to seven goals every single game and it is impossible. He is happy and he will score a lot of goals, people want him to fail because he doesn’t score 50 goals. We know it but it doesn’t matter.
“He made the second goal really good, What is important is creating chances and maybe in the right moment of the season he will be there even better than now. He has already scored a lot of goals in the Premier League, more than people who are getting a lot of compliments.”
After protecting his striker from external noise, Guardiola went on to say he doesn’t judge Haaland on goals even if others do.
“He is there in the Champions League again. We are really pleased,” Guardiola said. ” I told him many times I don’t judge him to score goals, I know you want to score but he is involved in the last games, he is participating more in the process. I don’t want him to stay in the box just and score a goal.
“As much as he is involved in the goal, when the ball arrives in the box you will be more clever to do it and hopefully he can still have the desire. I don’t have doubts about that.”
