Guardiola insists he is sticking with Haaland despite City’s poor run of form
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Pep Guardiola has said he will not consider dropping Erling Haaland and adopting a false No 9 in an attempt to find a formula to arrest Manchester City’s run of eight defeats in 11 matches. City travel to Aston Villa for Saturday’s early kick-off, with the 3-0 win over Nottingham Forest on 4 December the champions’ only triumph since they beat Southampton 1-0 on 26 October.
Before Haaland joined City in June 2022, Guardiola enjoyed considerable success when deploying a false No 9, and he was asked if he would consider dropping the Norwegian and reverting to that way of playing, despite Haaland’s superb track record of scoring goals for City, with his 13 in the Premier League this season making him the division’s joint top-scorer, alongside Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah.
“No, no, I didn’t think about that,” said Guardiola. “Always I play false 9s for the quality – specifically the players [we play against] in that moment. In some games, for example, playing against man-to-man, against teams man-to-man: I love to play a false 9. But to have an Erling, I have to adapt.”.
City sold Julián Alvarez to Atlético Madrid for £81.5m in early August with the Argentina forward not replaced in Guardiola’s squad, and this despite the club making a £139m profit on player sales for last season, only £30.8m of which was reinvested in Savinho in the summer market. With Rodri absent for the remainder of the season with a serious knee injury, City are now considering strengthening in January.
