Pep Guardiola has a decision to make on Erling Haaland for Manchester CIty's trip to Aston Villa on Saturday.
15.08.2022 - 00:51 / manchestereveningnews.co.uk
Pep Guardiola is confident that Manchester City will find ways to get the best out of Erling Haaland in games where teams play a low block at the Etihad Stadium.
Haaland made his home debut for City on Saturday against a Bournemouth side who played a 5-4-1 formation with the defence and midfield lines extremely deep in an attempt to combat City's attackers. Haaland had a role in the opening goal, coming deep to play a one-two with Ilkay Gundogan and getting an assist, but he was otherwise quiet in front of goal and registered just one shot.
However, that didn't bother Guardiola, who had defended Haaland's almost impossible task of playing against three centre-backs and two holding midfielders. Now, he says the squad must work on the training ground to find a solution to get Haaland involved more when other teams play like Bournemouth did.
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"I won’t take more balls to him," Guardiola said. "He cannot drop because there are five players there and spaces are tight so you have to adapt the way they want to play from how the opponent defends. If they press high we will create more chances for him. Just in that position, in those one or two actions, we have to look at him.
"In this type of defences you have to play with a striker or maybe two because you have to attack left-right, right-centre right-left inside and behind when the space is minimal. At the right moment when Joao [Cancelo] or Kevin [De Bruyne] go inside, that is the right time for movement.
"But it is coming, it is a question of timing, in my career many times we play teams like that and we always find a solution to break it. The most important thing is that many other players
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