Pep Guardiola defended a visibly frustrated Erling Haaland after his unusually profligate display for Manchester City against Chelsea.
The normally prolific Norwegian striker missed several strong chances in Saturday evening’s pulsating Premier League encounter at the Etihad Stadium.
Haaland headed the first real chance of an entertaining match wide of Djordje Petrovic’s back post after Julian Alvarez had crossed from the byline, while he also miscued an awkward volley wide shortly after half-time as City chased an equaliser following a fine Chelsea counter-attack before the break finished off expertly by ex-home favourite Raheem Sterling.
Haaland also had a close-range effort blocked by Levi Colwill, while he later saw a deflected strike off the impressive Axel Disasi beaten away by Petrovic as he mustered a grand total of nine efforts without scoring.
The reigning Premier League Golden Boot winner’s most surprising miss of the bunch came when City were pursuing a late winner following Rodri’s emphatic 83rd-minute equaliser that deflected in off substitute Trevoh Chalobah, with Haaland showing great strength and movement to lose Colwill before heading Kevin De Bruyne’s pinpoint cross well over the crossbar.
Haaland – who scored twice to down Everton last week with his first goals since November following a lingering foot injury that kept him sidelined for almost two months – showed his frustration with such an uncharacteristically wasteful performance at the full-time whistle, when he pushed away a Sky Sports camera in fury.
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Had he brought his shooting boots then City would have closed the gap to leaders Liverpool back down to two points after the Reds produced an injury-hit 4-1 win at Brentford earlier in the day, instead they are third – with a game in hand – and two points behind Arsenal, who also earned a huge victory over struggling Burnley at Turf Moor.
However, City boss Guardiola refused to offer any sort of criticism of Haaland after the game, pointing to his own meagre scoring record as a player and tipping the former Borussia Dortmund star to bounce back swiftly – starting with another home fixture against Brenford on Tuesday night.
“It’s good to have nine shots and next time he’s going to score,” Guardiola said.
“I was a football player for 11 years and scored 11 goals. What stats! One goal a season. I’m not a proper man to give advice to strikers.
“We create the chances, he had the chances and next time he’s going to score. I don’t blame him. It’s football, it’s human beings.”
