Erling Haaland is already one of the best strikers in the Premier League if not in the world. The Norwegian international have had a superb start to life at the Etihad. He has been breaking records for fun.
One such record was up for grabs when Manchester City ran riot against Leipzig. Manchester City scored 7 goals in which Haaland was the main man with 5 to his name, with the Champions League record of most goals in one match held by Lionel Messi up for grabs, Guardiola substituted the big Norwegian with Julian Alvarez.
Fans were not happy with this many believing that Haaland might have broken the record Messi that night. While Haaland would have been unhappy but he did not show his displeasure but accepted the substitution. Haaland while speaking with BT Sport responded:
I told him [Guardiola] when I went off, ‘I would love to score a double hat-trick’. But what can I do? I had to go off.
Guardiola also responded to the Haaland substitution and stated why he substituted the Norwegian international:
If he achieves this milestone at 22, 23, it will be boring his life. He wouldn’t have a target to reach in the future. Here and everywhere. That’s why I make a substitution. I didn’t know about Messi with Leverkusen (when he scored five against them in 2012), but I make a substitution because normally when the game is over we want them to play. He scored five goals. The problem is every time we don’t score two or three he will be criticised. This is the reality.
While this joke left a lot of fans wondering whether Guardiola showed favoritism for Messi by not allowing Haaland to break the Argentinian’s record.
While these questions were not answered and Haaland again scored a hattrick against Burnley where he was again substituted again. While responding to the hattrick Guardiola said:
Eight goals in four days. I played 11 years in Barcelona and scored 11 goals! He did it. It’s incredible. I made a substitution to him at three goals to not break the record to Messi in the FA Cup.
This was a non-serious response from the Spanish manager. But fans couldn’t help but think that the Spaniard keeps up with memes online as these kinds of conspiracy theories are often cooked up on Reddit and Twitter.
The clip has surfaced on Twitter and fans can’t get enough of the former Barcelona manager.
One user thought that this was not a joke and asked “Wait which record does Messi have in the FA cup”. Some even praised Pep for his response superb responses. Some thought that this was a serious response to show his love for Messi.
But more or less everyone is convinced that Pep is active on social media:
Lool.. This man sees our Twitter posts 😅😅
— Godfather of PortHarcourt 🎩 (@Mr_Pucca) March 18, 2023
we're gonna find out your Messi stan account eventually
— trib (@tribmessi) March 18, 2023
Pep keeps up with the footy Twitter memes 😂
— EZ (@Izzybb310) March 18, 2023
This guy has a burner Twitter account lol
— Leo24 (@LM_0302) March 18, 2023
His post managerial improv comedy career is going to be something to see.
— nuala (@heynules) March 18, 2023
