Manchester City scored 99 goals in 38 Premier League games this season, so they didn’t suffer from not having a recognised striker on the pitch – Gabriel Jesus, Phil Foden, Raheem Sterling and Bernardo Silva shared responsibilities.
Pep Guardiola will hope his new signing Erling Haaland will make scoring easier next season, however, with the 21-year-old bagging 84 goals in 88 games for Borussia Dortmund. But Tom Roddy has warned that he might initially struggle to adapt.
He said on The Game Football Podcast: “Even though he’s young, (Haaland has) actually moved around a lot – Molde FK, RB Salzburg, Dortmund – so I don’t think he’s gonna have any issue settling in a new country.
“But what he may have an issue with is adapting to Pep Guardiola’s play. It takes time. We’ve seen that with Raheem Sterling and Jack Grealish. It takes a little bit of time.”
Sterling has hit double figures for Premier League goals in each of his last five seasons at City, but he didn’t begin his career at the Etihad Stadium that way. The 27-year-old scored six league games with two assists in his debut campaign but had a hand 17 goals the following season.
Grealish scored three goals and made three assists in 26 league games this season, so he has some adapting to do too. Haaland tends to make an instant impact, however, scoring in his second league game for RB Leipzig (29 goals in 27 games over 12 months) and scoring a hatrrick on his Dortmund debut (13 goals in 15 Bundesliga games), so he might not need as long to adapt.
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In other news, Aymeric Laporte called ‘a top defender’ despite PFA Team of the Year snub