Guardiola Hails Hat-trick Hero Halaand

Pep Guardiola responded to criticism after recording his fourth hat-trick of the year in a 3-0 victory over Wolves, Erling Haaland decided he would not change his playing style to match Manchester City’s.

The 22-year-old has already scored 31 goals overall and 25 Premier League goals in just 19 appearances during his first season with the English champions.

“The numbers are incredible,” said Guardiola. “He lives 24 hours for his profession, job, passion, love.
“He’s not stressed much when it’s going well or going bad. He is stable.”

With City trailing Arsenal in the title race and Haaland’s incredible scoring rate having decreased recently, there have been doubts about whether Guardiola’s team performs better without a true striker.

The past two years, City has won the championship despite playing for the most part without a designated number nine.

“When he played and scored, I don’t know many goals, he is the solution and everything of the team and when he does not score, he is the problem in our team,” added Guardiola.

“We know his quality. We know each other. He is not a player to be dropped. We can’t play the false nine with him. You have to adapt some movements with him and we are doing quite well.”

A comfortable win was just what Guardiola was looking for after he called out a lack of hunger and desire from his squad to retain the title after coming from behind to beat Tottenham 4-2 on Thursday.

“We talk a little bit these days about what we think we miss,” said Guardiola. “It’s just one game. We will see in the future.

“Our football was really, really good. Today we improved. That was just today. We will see what happens in the next games.”