18 February 2024 , 10:20
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Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola has promised Erling Haaland will score in his side's next game after the striker matched an unwanted club record.
Haaland endured a dreadful evening against Chelsea as City slipped up in the Premier League title race. The Norwegian missed a hatful of chances, having nine chances on the Chelsea goal in total. That saw him become the first City player since Sergio Aguero in 2017 to fail to find the back of the net from that many shots. His Expected Goals total of 1.71 was also his highest without scoring.
Though he remains one of the Premier League's top strikers, Haaland has now scored just twice in his last six top-flight matches, with both of those goals coming in the win over Everton last week.
He reacted angrily to his difficult night on Saturday, shoving away a camera as he left the Etihad Stadium pitch. But Guardiola is adamant that the struggling striker will soon hit another patch of form.
“It's good he had nine shots. Next time he’s going to score. I was a football player and I played 11 years and scored 11 goals. What a stat, hey? One goal a season, those are my stats," the City boss said.
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“So I’m not a proper man to give advice about the striker and what they have to do. We create the chances, he had the chances and in the next game he is going to score. Absolutely [I believe that]. It’s football, he’s a human being.
"I don't blame that… it is football, it is human beings. It is just as a team, as a group, in the first half we did not perform at our level. The way we played, we deserved to win. I have no doubt about that, with the chances we had, that we deserved it.
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Haaland endured a wretched evening against Chelsea, failing to score from nine shots (Getty Images)"The first half was tight, they had their chances with the transition. Our dynamic was not proper, but we had two or three clear [chances] too. But we started to play after we scored a goal. We reacted after Raheem scored and the second half was really good with the way we played and the way we did everything."
Former City and Chelsea star Daniel Sturridge believes that the missed chances will weigh heavy on Haaland's shoulders. He thinks that the Norwegian will be feeling down, but has o pick himself back up.
"Of course, he's going to analyse his game when he goes home and say 'what could I have done better?' A player at his level, who goes onto the pitch with an expectation of scoring goals,
"He's going to be going home feeling down about himself, that he could have been the person who won the game for his team today. But it's the life of a striker. You have these type of days where nothing goes right for you.
"You know your job is to provide the goals. Haaland has that weight on his shoulders. Although the goals are spread around he knows what he was brought here for and we know what his talent level is and his personal expectations are."
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