Erling Haaland to Manchester City is a “Done Deal”

With that time now approaching The Athletic reported just a few days ago that his destination was likely to be Manchester City.

Pep Guardiola’s side has been criticised for lacking an out and out striker after the departure of club legend Sergio Agüero last summer.

It now appears that the Spaniard has got his man with reports saying that Erling Haaland to Manchester City is a “done deal”.

Now we can confirm that Manchester City has a deal in principle with Borussia Dortmund to make Erling Haaland a Manchester City player.

Interest in Haaland was high going into the summer transfer window with Barcelona, Real Madrid and PSG all keeping a close eye on the player.

Dortmund was never going to be able to keep Haaland after this window as the forward had a £65 million time gated release clause in his contract that came into play after the winter transfer window closed.

Dortmund was expecting Manchester City to activate that release clause this week and that has now happened. Dortmund themselves have wasted no time in securing the services of another young attacker in Karim Adeyami.

Why Does Pep Guardiola Want Haaland?

Haaland joined Borussia Dortmund from Red Bull Salzburg in January 2020 for a fee of around £20 million and immediately became one of the most dangerous attackers in European football.

Since that time Erling Haaland has scored an incredible 85 goals in 88 games for the German club.

A stat that will make Pep Guardiola’s eyes light up is that in that time Haaland has amassed an impressive 23 assists on top of an already astounding goals tally.

There aren’t many players in world football with no weaknesses in their game, but in Erling Haaland, The Citizens will have the closest thing they can to the perfect striker.

Excellent finishing, good link up play, exceptional pace and being an extraordinary physical specimen mean that City will have the closest thing to the player that money can buy.

At just 21 years of age, Erling Haaland will surely only get better under the tutorship of Pep Guardiola and represents a sensible investment for City.

At 21 years old with a cut price deal, it is very likely that City will make a huge profit selling Haaland in the future if forward decided to move on. A truly great piece of business by the club.

How Will Haaland Fit In At City?

The arrival of Haaland at City will change the way that they play significantly in the coming season.

It is likely that Guardiola will abandon his current formation which makes use of a false number 9 to accommodate his star signing.

This will probably mean that City revert back to the 4-3-3 formation that they utilised to successfully win two Premier League trophies in both 2018 and 2019.

It will also take a huge amount of the goal scoring burden away from players like Jack Grealish who have been criticised for not fining the net enough this season.

Interestingly Haaland is not the only new striker that will be joining City for the new season.

Argentine International striker Julián Álvarez signed a pre-contract with Manchester City in December 2021 meaning that Haaland will have some competition for his place in the team.

Lauded for his performances and work ethic at Dortmund, Haaland will surely be given the first crack at leading the City line during the coming 2022-2023 season.

How well do you think that Erling Haaland will do at Manchester City? Let us know! If you enjoyed this content then follow me on Twitter @AzLynchy and also make sure to follow @FootballOTH and @OTHeroics for more sports content.

Image Credit Fabrizio Romano