by Erling Haaland has refused to close the door on a future move to Real Madrid despite insisting he is “very happy” with Manchester City.
Real are expected to sign French striker Kylian Mbappé on a free transfer from Paris St-Germain this summer but Haaland are long-term admirers.
City beat Madrid to sign the Norwegian goal machine from Borussia Dortmund for £51 million in June 2022 but Real’s interest never went away.
Asked about the links with Real and whether he felt City had everything he needed to stay at the club long-term in the run-up to their Champions League tie against Copenhagen, Haaland said: “I’m very happy , especially with the people around me – the manager [Pep Guardiola]the directors, the board, they’re a great bunch of people and I’m really happy, I have to say.
“If I say this now it’s probably going to be a huge headline … tomorrow you don’t know what the future will bring, but I’m happy. You can write this but you must also write everything I said before. I am happy.”
Haaland – who scored his 28th goal of the campaign in a 3-1 win over Manchester United on Sunday – dismissed recent reports from Madrid that he did not like Manchester as a city to live in. “Yes, I enjoy life, I enjoy life. with those closest to me and I enjoy it [Manchester]. I don’t know what else to say.”
Haaland’s current contract with City runs until June 2027 and has a release clause believed to be worth at least £150m.
Sports telegraph reported in October how the Premier League and European champions planned to open talks on a new deal for Haaland during the season.
But the 23-year-old refused to be drawn on a potential contract extension by insisting he was focusing on winning more trophies with City in the coming months after last season’s extraordinary Treble success.
“I mainly focus on the pitch now, there are a lot of games going on, two days ago there was the Manchester Derby, now the Champions League. [against Copenhagen]Sunday is Liverpool [at Anfield in the Premier League],” he said. “I think I should focus on that. I don’t think I should focus on anything else right now.”
I used to cry when I missed opportunities but now I am stress free
There was a time, said Haaland, when the kind of chance he missed in the Manchester derby on Sunday could eat him up.
“It was a challenge for me when I was young,” explained the Manchester City striker. “I remember when I was young I would start crying if I lost and I missed a lot of chances. I’ve been working on it a lot but it’s been a challenge.”
That mental work seems to be paying off. If Haaland was underwhelmed by his horrific miss from three yards that Gary Lineker described as “the worst miss I’ve ever seen at this level” he didn’t show it as he smashed home goal No. 28 of the later campaign i. the match to secure a 3-1 win over Manchester United.
Or at the press conference ahead of City’s Champions League round of 16 second leg against Copenhagen at the Etihad Stadium on Wednesday when a relaxed, smiling Haaland could poke fun at himself about his clanger and playfully nod at Lineker’s statement.
“People say I’m good at scoring goals but I missed the biggest chance in the world two days ago,” Haaland said, tongue ever so slightly in cheek. “I can get better at that too.
“I missed a lot of chances. I will continue to miss chances, I will continue to score goals. Yes, I will probably lose a big chance in the future too, and people are going to criticize me, but what can I do then? Should I think about that? Just focus on scoring more goals and helping the team.”
It was certainly hard to believe that Haaland was ever introspective or uncertain about what is lost, watching him take court in the City media auditorium on Tuesday with a calmness and confidence befitting one of the players best in the game.
But he insists that he has taken work to find the satisfaction of that job where he can easily ward off negativity and doubt.
“It’s a mental thing,” Haaland said. “I don’t have any exercises, it’s something I’ve been working on naturally. He is [like] with everything in life, if you overlook something it is not good. If there is stress in your life, it is not good.
“My life is mainly about football, and that is my focus. I have one career so I try my best to have the best career. My focus is to be the best possible version of myself, so the biggest thing is the mental part.
“I demand a lot from myself and all my teammates demand a lot from me and the manager [Guardiola] and all the fans. I think it is something to work on and in the end everything is here [taps head]. It’s an easy answer but it’s also so difficult [to achieve].”
Analyzing Haaland’s performance against United on Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football show (see below), former Arsenal striker Thierry Henry claimed the Norwegian could improve on various aspects of his game, particularly reading certain passes and make specific runs. Haaland disagrees, even if he is reluctant to be drawn on the details that Guardiola asks him to do for fear of revealing trade secrets.
“I don’t want to say too much about this because it’s our strategy and we use them against our opponents, but I do what he does. [Guardiola] Haaland tells me to do it,” Haaland said. “I try to get involved when I should. There are many things I can get better at – everything. I can get a lot better at a lot of things and that’s why I train.”
No one has missed more so-called “big chances” under Opta’s metrics this season than Haaland’s 26. Liverpool’s Darwin Núñez is the next 21. But Haaland topped that table last season with 28 wasted “big chances” and the only statistic. He is remembered or worth mentioning for the 52 goals he scored en route to helping City win the League Championship, Champions League and FA Cup. And his record of 28 goals this term is even more impressive when you consider that he missed two months through injury.
“You can think of it in maybe two ways,” he said. “Last year I was top scorer, I got 36 goals [in the Premier League]and this season’s top scorer [also Haaland] got 18 so far, so you can think of it two ways if it was a good season for me or not. I think we’re doing well as a team, that’s obviously my main focus.”
City will move top of the Premier League if they beat leaders Liverpool at Anfield on Sunday and Haaland says last season’s success has only fueled his desire and made him hungrier for more.
“You can think of it two ways – one is I came here and won it all,” he said. “And the other thing is that I’m 23 years old and I’ve won everything and I’ve got the taste of it – what it’s like to win everything – and the way I work is when I feel this, I want to win it again. . So easy.
“I focus on Copenhagen at the moment, but yes [Liverpool] it’s a massive game, it’s going to be a massive game and one of the biggest in England, so we’ve got to be ready, we’ve got to be brave and we’ve got to play at our best because they’ve been really good this season.”
