AN icy chill whistled through football when Pep Guardiola declared that Erling Haaland is even better now than he was last year.If that’s true, then the other Premier League teams might as well pack up now and go home.
Pep Guardiola’s Man City have had a quiet transfer window so farCredit: Getty
But is it really possible for the remorseless Norwegian to improve on perfection?
Can he realistically expect to score 52 goals again or was last season simply a case of all the stars aligning and everything falling into place for Manchester City’s blond bombshell?
Of course Haaland will have benefited from his first year in English football and, as Guardiola points out, he’s also physically much fitter.
But that doesn’t automatically mean he is going to exceed last season’s incredible accomplishments.
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It hasn’t gone unnoticed among rival clubs desperately clutching at straws that Haaland only scored once in City’s final eight games of their all-conquering campaign.
Perhaps he was just saving himself for the Champions League final after putting so much energy into after running opponents ragged all season.
But maybe, just maybe, defenders were starting to find a way to nullify his threat and keep him at arm’s length.
City fans will be praying that is not the case as their team sets out to win a sixth Premier League title in seven years.
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But it has been a curious summer for Guardiola, with Ilkay Gundogan and Riyad Mahrez gone, Kyle Walker, Bernardo Silva, Joao Cancelo and Aymeric Laporte all considering their futures and only Mateo Kovacic signed so far.
With five weeks of the transfer window remaining, there’s still plenty of time for that to change.
But they have already lost out to Arsenal for Declan Rice, didn’t even compete with Real Madrid for Jude Bellingham and are now quibbling over the £85million asking price for RB Leipzig defender Josko Gvardiol.
One of the oldest cliches in football is that the minute you stand still the world starts to move away from you.
And it’s just beginning to look as if the European champions might be in danger of resting on their golden laurels.
Of course there is so much ground for the other teams to make up that they can afford to take their foot off the gas a bit just to make things interesting.
Is City’s motivation the same after winning every trophy on offer?Mark Irwin
But that’s not the way Guardiola works. He’s a relentless perfectionist and there’s no way he’ll be happy to give any encouragement to Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United or Chelsea.
He doesn’t have a complacent bone in his body but is the same true of the City’s owners who achieved their Holy Grail when they lifted the Champions League in June?
This is Pep’s first summer that the club have not made at least one statement signing and even if they can get Gvardiol over the line it’s not going to electrify the fan base.
So while no-one could ever accuse City of lacking ambition, is their motivation the same after winning every trophy on offer?
They might be universally acknowledged as the best team in the world, but when you’ve reached the top the only way from there is down.
And if that doesn’t guarantee that they now win the League, the Champions League, FA Cup, EFL Cup, Super Cup and World Club Cup, nothing will.
PITCH BATTLE
WATCHING all the pre-season games out here in the USA, the one thing that really stands out is how poor the pitches are.
And considering they are going to be hosting the World Cup in three years’ time, that could become a real issue.
The problem is that all of the big stadiums are owned by American football teams and they play on synthetic surfaces.
So to accommodate the visiting ‘soccer’ teams from Europe, they lay down temporary grass pitches which don’t compare with the lush turf of Wembley or Old Trafford.
The surface at the Metlife Stadium for Man Utd v Arsenal left a lot to be desiredCredit: The Mega Agency
Ahead of the Manchester United v Arsenal game in New Jersey the other day, they were using a bloody great hosepipe to water the pitch because they don’t have undersoil sprinklers.
And this was the Metlife Stadium, which will more than likely be staging the 2026 World Cup final.
It was the same story when Arsenal played Barcelona at Stan Kroenke’s state of the art SoFi Stadium in LA, where the pitch had only been laid just the previous night after a convert by some country singer.
Another case for Fifa of never mind the quality, look at the cash.
DESERT STORMER
AL-HILAL have sent out a message to the entire sporting world with their £259million bid for Kylian Mbappe.
It comprises two words…and the second one is ‘off’.
What they are doing is letting everyone know that no matter how much money the established aristocracy of the game might have, they can’t even begin to compete with the Saudis.
It’s willy waving on a global scale because PSG would willingly have accepted £130m for Mbappe to prevent him from running down his contract and leaving as a free agent next year.
Al-Hilal bid £269m for Kylian Mbappe just because they canCredit: AFP
But Al-Hilal have offered twice the asking price simply because they can.
It’s two fingers to everyone who sneers at the idea of football in the desert or questions their record on human rights
Manchester United, Real Madrid, Liverpool, Chelsea, Inter Milan and Manchester City have all been powerless to stop key players packing their bags for Riyadh and now even Qatari owned PSG want to cash in on their neighbour’s extravagance.
Premier League clubs are unhappy that Newcastle are about to flog Allan Saint-Maximin to another branch of the Saudi Public Investment Fund.
But with financial fair play now in tatters, that’s probably the least of their problems.
THAT’S A S**T KIT
IF you thought that Arsenal’s horrific away kit was the worst new strip you’d see this summer, think again.
Because Manchester United have just released a green-and-white striped effort that is an absolute abomination.
It’s almost as if the kit manufacturers are competing to see just how far they can push their luck and still convince supporters to part with their hard-earned cash.
It’s an industry version of the emperor’s new clothes and the in-joke is on you.
Manchester United’s new away kit is an absolute abominationCredit: Getty
LOWER THE BAR
REMEMBER when Barcelona were the biggest, most glamorous club in the world with every top player desperate to join them?
Well things have got so bad at the Nou Camp these days that they have been reduced to signing former Southampton reject Oriol Romeu on a free transfer from Girona.
But the real joke is that they have inserted a buy-out clause into his new contract and their asking price for the veteran midfielder is £347million.
What do you think they’re smoking in Catalonia?
Oriol Romeu (right) in action for Barcelona against Arsenal in the USACredit: Getty
GROUNDLESS CLAIMS
THE other day I received an email from some PR company or other to announce that Old Trafford had come top of a fans’ survey as the best ground in the Premier League.
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Half an hour later a missive arrived from a different company claiming that Anfield had been named the finest stadium in the country according to supporters.
Which of them was right? I don’t know and I don’t care because it’s all a load of made-up nonsense. More
