Pep Guardiola summed up the difference between Erling Haaland and Lionel Messi after Manchester City’s convincing 6-3 victory over Manchester United on Sunday.
Haaland has enjoyed a dream start to life at City, scoring a remarkable 17 goals in his first 11 appearances for the Premier League champions.
The 22-year-old netted a hat-trick against United and subsequently became the first player to score three consecutive hat-tricks at home in the Premier League.
It’s taken Haaland just eight games to score three Premier League hat-tricks, smashing Michael Owen’s record of 48 matches.
Read more: Erling Haaland: Which PL players scored three hat-tricks the fastest?
Haaland also became the 14th player to earn a 10/10 rating from the notoriously hard-to-please judges at L’Equipe.
Not even Manchester United hero Cristiano Ronaldo has managed to earn a perfect 10 from the guys at the respected French publication.
Read more: Haaland, Messi, Neymar: 14 players have now received 10/10 rating from L’Equipe
What did Pep say about the difference between Haaland and Messi?
Lionel Messi is the only footballer to have received two 10s from L’Equipe and Guardiola was asked if he gets the same feeling about Haaland as he did about the man widely regarded as football’s greatest of all time.
The interviewer said to Guardiola: “He is different player but when you had Leo Messi, you always expected him to go out and score every game, do you feel that about Erling Haaland?”
Speaking on beIN Sports, Guardiola replied: “The difference is Erling needs maybe all his mates you know to do it but when he arrives… unbelievable.
“Messi had ability for himself to do it.”
Video: Pep Guardiola on difference between Haaland and Messi
Watch the clip here:
Pep has made no secret of the fact that he believes Messi, who he enjoyed so much success alongside at Barcelona between 2008-2012, is on a totally different level to any other footballer in history.
And despite working with Haaland for the past few months, and witnessing greatness from the Norwegian, Guardiola still believes that Messi is in a league of his own due to that incredibly rare ability to win matches single-handedly.
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How well has Lionel Messi been playing this season?
At the age of 35, Messi is still unquestionably one of the best players - if not *the* best player - in world football.
In 12 appearances for Paris Saint-Germain this season, the seven-time Ballon d’Or winner has scored seven goals and provided a further eight assists.
The phenomenal Argentine forward looks set to enter next month’s World Cup full of confidence and playing his best football since leaving Barcelona in 2021.
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