Erling Haaland has pointed to himself and three of his Manchester City teammates as the players responsible for the disappointing loss against Bodø/Glimt.
On Tuesday evening, Manchester City traveled to Aspmyra Stadium in Norway for a tough Champions League away game against Bodø/Glimt.
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Despite going into the game as clear favourites, City soon came under pressure when Bodø/Glimt striker Kasper Høgh found the back of the net twice in the first 25 minutes.
The situation only got worse for Pep Guardiola’s team when the home side’s winger Jens Petter Hauge scored a third goal, before Rodri was shown the red card just after Rayan Cherki scored City’s only goal in the 3-1 loss.
After the game, City star Haaland spoke out about the team’s performance, claiming that he and three of his teammates were solely responsible for the “embarrassing” result.
Despite the fact that we should now be used to Haaland exceeding expectations, the 25-year-old is having a spectacular season so far, with 26 goals and four assists in 31 appearances across all competitions.
But his return to his homeland did not inspire a memorable performance, as he again did not score. A penalty against Brighton is his only goal in the last eight games.
But, to his credit, Haaland accepted that he was partly to blame for the disappointing result against Bodø/Glimt. He mentioned himself and his “experienced” teammates Rodri, Gianluigi Donnarumma and Tijjani Reijnders as the players responsible for the defeat.
Speaking to TNT Sports, Haaland said: “I take full responsibility together with Rodri, Gigio [Donnarumma], Tijjani [Reijnders] – us experienced players.
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“I don’t want to blame anyone, but we have to take more responsibility, because at the end of the day, it’s not good enough. We are Manchester City, we can’t go around not winning games, it shouldn’t be like this.
“I don’t have the answers. I take full responsibility for the fact that I didn’t manage to score. I just apologize to everyone; every single Manchester City supporter, every supporter who travelled, because at the end of the day it’s embarrassing.
“Honestly, I don’t know what to say because I don’t have the answers, and the only thing I can say is sorry.”
Haaland’s performance comes after manager Guardiola said his star striker was “exhausted” ahead of the brutal 2-0 Premier League defeat to arch-rivals Manchester United.
But when asked how he felt, Haaland dismissed it, replying: “I don’t want to talk about how I feel or anything like that. I do my best when I’m on the pitch, [and] I’m on the pitch quite often because we play an absurd number of games.
“I’m trying to do my best, that’s my job, and I’m trying to get ready for the next game because now there’s another game coming up in four days, so we’ve got to try and recover.”
