Kevin De Bruyne was full of praise for Erling Haaland, calling the 22-year-old a “very good striker” while lauding his fantastic start to life at Manchester City, but he couldn’t help but wonder why critics thought he would struggle after leaving Borussia Dortmund.
Haaland has scored 20 goals with three assists from 14 games in all competitions this season, notching 15 Premier League goals alone. The Norwegian international scored 86 goals from 89 games at Dortmund and 21 goals from 23 caps for his country, so he was prolific prior to the switch.
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Not everyone thought Haaland would hit the ground running at City, however, which confused De Bruyne. He told the official club website: “I don’t understand why people would say it would be difficult to score goals here.
“I think we have an amazing team, we create a lot of opportunities for our strikers so if he’s there, he will score goals. I think he made a very good decision to come.”
Haaland was already one of Europe’s most prolific strikers before he joined City, having scored goals in Norway, Austria and Germany, but the 22-year-old’s reputation has further skyrocketed after proving his worth in England.
De Bruyne has gone from goalscorer to goal-creator in recent months to forge a formidable relationship on the pitch with Haaland.
He made eight assists in the Premier League last season but has nine this campaign already, four of which have been for the 22-year-old.
No player in the league has assisted a teammate more, so Pep Guardiola will be excited to see how many goals the pair can contribute.
In other news, Pep Guardiola ‘directly recommended’ signing 19 y/o who Barcelona wanted in 2021
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