Disappointed' - Pep Guardiola jokes about Erling Haaland and sends warning to Man City after striker scores twice to down Everton

After an injury-stricken 2024-25 season with Manchester City, which saw Haaland spend a considerable amount of time on the sidelines, the Norwegian star is back with a bang in the 2025-26 campaign. In the new season, Haaland has already scored more than 20 goals for club and country, including 14 for Manchester City across all competitions. Haaland is on course to win the Golden Boot award once again as he is now five goals above second-placed Antoine Semenyo in the race. 

On Saturday, the 25-year-old scored twice in a span of five minutes near the hour mark to seal a crucial win for Pep Guardiola's side over Everton, as they climbed up to second position in the league table. During the international break, the Norwegian had scored a hat-trick in his team's 5-0 win over Israel in a World Cup qualifying game. 

Pep Guardiola was relieved to see his side marching to a comfortable win over a difficult opponent like Everton as he made jokes about Haaland, while also issuing a warning to the remaining City stars. He urged the rest of the squad members to step up and start contributing with goals to avoid over-reliance on their star forward. 

Speaking to BBC Sport after the match, Guardiola said: "Disappointed he did not score four or five. All jokes aside, really pleased but we can not rely on just him, we need other players. Wingers, attacking midfielders. They have to make a step up and score goals. We play to provide Erling with quality and passing but other players have to step up. The chances were clear and they have to score. At this level they have to demand themselves. Chances from Savinho and Jeremy [Doku] and Tijjani [Reijnders] - they have to score. They have to do it otherwise we can't do what we want to do. Erling lives for it. Our delivery of passes has been better and Erling is our key man right now."

Guardiola also spoke about the performance in general, adding: "Typical first half after international break. We were not able to control the second balls, it wasn't easy. Everton and David Moyes are doing an incredible job. The quality is there and they have the long balls and experienced defenders. When we broke it we started to play better."

Pep Guardiola has never previously spent more than four seasons as manager at one club, citing reasons of tiredness or a need for a sabbatical as reasons to depart previous clubs Barcelona and Bayern Munich. At City, however, he is already in his ninth season and could soon complete a decade with the Sky Blues. Recently, former Cityzens performance analyst Carles Planchart had advised his old boss to consider taking up a new project and exit the Premier League club, however, the 54-year-old still believes he has "unfinished business" with the eight-time English champions, who are currently at somewhat of a crossroads as many of their treble-winning generation reach the back end of their careers. With vast sums of money spent on an influx of new players across 2025’s two transfer windows, Guardiola feels he still has the “energy” to lead the club as they aim to return to their former title-winning glory - an idea which some critics have questioned in recent months.

Guardiola will have to think of rotating his squad and protecting his star players from injuries and fatigue as the Premier League giants are scheduled to play six matches in less than three weeks' time from now until the November international break. It starts with a Champions League fixture away from home against Villarreal next Tuesday, followed by Premier League matches against Aston Villa, Bournemouth and Liverpool. In between, they also face German giants Borussia Dortmund at home in Europe.

As Guardiola mentioned in his post-match press conference, the other City attackers like Jeremy Doku, Phil Foden and Omar Marmoush need to step up and start scoring goals in order to reduce Haaland's burden up front.