Erling Haaland is reportedly ready to ‘divorce’ Manchester City because he has a’very distant’ relationship with Pep Guardiola, who has created a ‘bad atmosphere’.
Man City only signed the prolific striker last summer. They used his £51 million release clause to sign him from Bundesliga club Borussia Dortmund.
This season, Haaland has been in outstanding goal-scoring form for the Premier League champions. This season, he has 31 goals in 27 appearances for them across all competitions.
Despite this, Man City is trailing Arsenal in the title race, with some claiming that Haaland has made them weaker this season.
Guardiola’s must adapt their style for Haaland, and while they do not always get it right, they are quite frightening to watch at full tilt.
But Spanish outlet Nacional are reporting that Haaland’s relationship with Guardiola is ‘starting to crack’.
The report claims that Guardiola is making life difficult for himself this season as ‘several players accused him of being the main responsible for the bad atmosphere that is currently being felt’.
They then make reference to Joao Cancelo’s ‘growing tired’ of Guardiola prior to his loan move to Bayern Munich last month. Bernardo Silva, meanwhile, is ‘planning to leave’ in the coming months.
The ‘big bombshell,’ however, is that Haaland has a’very distant relationship’ with Guardiola. They put two and two together and conclude that he is’very unhappy with the style of play proposed by City’.
According to the report, this could ‘end up triggering an unsalvageable divorce with Guardiola, and his subsequent departure’. How dramatic is that?
Unsurprisingly, Nacional then links Haaland to Real Madrid, claiming that they are “very attentive” to his situation.
The forward’s ‘anger’ with Guardiola is ‘incredible news’ for Real Madrid as president Florentino Perez feels that he is the ‘best possible successor for Karim Benzema’.
The Spanish club may choose to ‘wait patiently’ until Haaland’s €200 million release clause becomes active in 2024.
According to Ben Jacobs, Haaland’s release clause ‘can only be triggered by non-Premier League clubs’.
‘Of course, the more he succeeds, the more interest he’ll attract, but it’s not true that there’s a Real Madrid-specific release clause, and Pep Guardiola has gone on record denying this,’ says Pep Guardiola. Jacobs contributed to Caught Offside.
‘In fact, there is no active release clause in his contract, though things will change slightly in the summer of 2024 when a €200 million release clause becomes active, which can only be triggered by non-Premier League clubs.
‘This will also decrease the longer Haaland stays at Manchester City, but the clause doesn’t mean much – if anyone outside the Premier League wants to trigger it, they’d still ideally not want to match its terms,’ says the publication.
