Pep Guardiola insists he doesn't care how many goals Erling Haaland scores for Manchester City this season, as he placed his faith that his new striker will play a big part in the Blues' campaign.
City signed Haaland for £51m this summer, and he scored within 12 minutes of his first outing for the club in pre-season against Bayern Munich, sliding in to convert a Jack Grealish cross. However, in the Community Shield last weekend, Haaland was quieter, and missed a glorious late chance that would have been a consolation goal for City in the defeat to Liverpool.
That miss, and subdued afternoon in Leicester, has prompted a week of external doubts over Haaland's chances of success with City, but Guardiola leapt to the defence of the Norwegian ahead of his likely Premier League debut at West Ham this weekend.
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Asked if he has a target of goals for Haaland, Guardiola replied bluntly: "I don’t know how many goals he’ll score and I don’t care."
He then explained how Haaland's performance against Liverpool was not anything that the club are concerned about, as he predicted that the squad may need time to adapt to their new striker.
"We are not going to win for Erling and lose for Erling. He has to be himself," Guardiola explained.
"From what I’ve seen he’s going to adapt incredibly quickly. He played last week one 90 minutes for the first time in five months. He’s a big figure in terms of his physicality and maybe needs more time to get his best condition and he will have the time. I have him for five years.
"If people have doubts he is going to score goals — he is going to score the goals like he’s done every year. The chances are always there — he has this sense, he is a good finisher.
"He can adapt to the way we play and in the final third we are going to adapt to him, sometimes this needs a little time of course, but I don’t have any doubts it’s going to happen. The goals he’s going to score, I don’t care.
"We always want to help new players but the most important thing is not me but how they adapt to the rest of the team. What is important is the relationship between them and the rest, for the quality always these players that I had since I arrived here. If they are in Manchester City it is because they have quality."
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