Erling Haaland scored a brace to end his barren run in the competition, while Rico Lewis stood out for the visitors.
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Manchester City had to work hard to get past Swiss side Young Boys 3-1 in a Champions League group stage contest. The defending champions were expected to win the game comfortably but the game did not transpire in that manner. In the end, the scoreline might read comfortably in City’s favour but the game was a lot closer than that. Erling Haaland scored a brace to end his barren run in the competition, while Rico Lewis stood out for the visitors.
However, the conversation before and after the game circled mainly about Erling Haaland. Despite his brilliant goalscoring exploits, Haaland has been unusually quiet for a couple of games in this season’s Champions League and at the end of last season’s competition. However, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola came to the striker’s defence after the club’s 3-1 win over Swiss side Young Boys on Wednesday night.
“He has the pressure from what happened last season. Not just last season. He has to score seven goals every single game and it is impossible. He is happy. He scored a lot of goals. People want him to fail after scoring 52 goals. Maybe in the right moment of the season he will be there even better than now. In the Champions League again he is there,” Guardiola, quoted by the club’s website, said after the match.
He added: “We are really pleased he is a guy with hunger. He is so humble. He is an incredible professional. He is a great competitor. He is involved in the games and participates more in our process. I don’t want him to just to be there in the box and score goals. If he is there involved when we arrive in the box he will be more clever. I have no doubts and he has a desire to improve.”
To Man City’s credit, they did create a good number of opportunities, however, their front players failed to take them. Either way, Guardiola was pleased with the team’s display. “The result is good. Nine out of nine. Our positional game was exceptional. We talk about short passes on artificial pitches and long passes is more difficult to control it. We had chances but in general it was a really really good game. Very pleased for the performance. We could have scored more goals but it’s important to create the chances,” he stated.
Meanwhile, Rico Lewis was the star of the night for Manchester City. The youngster produced a man-of-the-match performance to help the visitors get the win. “I’ve been wanting this for a while. Today, I was a bit frustrated with the goal against us, I think I could have done better there. But after five minutes I let that go, and tried to create chances for us. I got back into the game. I’m buzzing. It was good,” he explained.
He added: “It’s a difficult game, a different challenge for us, the surface and the weather, the environment we’re in that they’re used to. But as you saw, the team is so good at adapting. We played so good in the first half, it was more back and forth in the second half but we got the job done. That’s how it goes. There’s a lot of chances in the game. If you don’t take them it could be difficult. In the end, the forwards scored their chances. We got the job done and won the game.”
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