Pep Guardiola opened up about Erling Haaland‘s glaring miss in the first half of the Manchester derby as he hailed the striker as a ‘great player’.
The Manchester City forward missed a sitter in the first half as he failed to push the ball into an empty net from a handshaking distance. Haaland, though, netted a third goal towards the end of the game to increase his team’s winning margin in the Manchester derby.
Manager Guardiola later said that Haaland’s ability to forget about mistakes is what makes him a “great player” as he mentioned a bizarre basketball players’ analogy.
Speaking to reporters after the game, the Catalan manager said, “The great, great players I met, I was lucky to manage many of them, they forget [missed chances] in an instant. They forget as quickly as possible. Footballers, basketball players. They miss. They just smile and get on with it and he [Haaland] did it. He has an incredible ability to forget. That defines the great players.”
Against the run of play, Marcus Rashford had handed United the lead with a thunderous strike before Phil Foden brought the Cityzens back into the game in the second half with another world-class hit. The England international then completed his brace to put his team in front before Haaland scored a third to seal an important win for the reigning champions.
The Premier League champions will be next seen in action in the Champions League on Wednesday as they take on Copenhagen in the second leg of their round of 16 clash.
