Erling Haaland: We needed this one

After 3-1 win over Gunners, Haaland urges Man City to take away title chances from Arsenal

Erling Haaland said Manchester City have to back up a 3-1 win at Arsenal on Wednesday to go top of the Premier League with a consistent run of form. The Norwegian scored his 32nd goal of the season to seal the three points that knocked Arsenal off the top of the table for the first time since November. Arsenal still have a game in hand over their title rivals, but have now taken just one point from their last three games. “I’m so happy,” Haaland told Amazon Prime. “We needed this one and now we need to start going on a run because that’s what Man City do.” 

‘All the boys are champs’

Haaland is in his debut season in the Premier League, but many of his teammates have been part of City’s four title-winning campaigns in the past five years. “City, we—not me but all the boys and club here—are the champions so you can say so yes,” added Haaland on whether Pep Guardiola’s men had delivered the performance of champions. “They [Arsenal] have been the best team this season so to come on their place and play against them is not easy and we got three important points.” 

Also read: Manchester City beat Chelsea to close gap at top

Guardiola described his side’s first half performance as “horrible” but hailed the reaction of the visitors after the break. Kevin De Bruyne pounced on an error by Takehiro Tomiyasu to put City in front, but Arsenal levelled before the break through Bukayo Saka’s penalty.

Haaland scores winner

Jack Grealish’s deflected effort restored City’s lead 18 minutes from time before Haaland swept home De Bruyne’s pass. “They have one game in hand still so I consider them leaders but we could have been eight, nine or 10 points behind two weeks ago and now we are there,” said Guardiola. “First half they were much better than us, [our] second half was much better. At half-time we said we are not playing, just defending, because they are so good. But we should be more active and the second half was excellent.” 

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