Bernardo Silva has compared the mentality of Manchester City goal machine Erling Haaland to that of Cristiano Ronaldo.
22-year-old Haaland has enjoyed a record-breaking debut season in England, scoring 48 goals in all competitions – four more than Ruud van Nistelrooy and Mohamed Salah achieved for Manchester United and Liverpool respectively to set the previous best mark from a Premier League player.
Haaland could play another ten games in all competitions between now and the end of the season, and will break Salah’s record of 32 goals in a 38-game Premier League campaign with just one more strike.
Few have been surprised by how Haaland has settled in at the Etihad, though his goalscoring exploits at times have beggared belief – he already has six hat-tricks to his name in City colours.
Portugal international Silva, meanwhile, has also been an integral player for City, and is likely to have a huge role to play if the club are to overhaul Arsenal in the race for the Premier League title in addition to securing a first Champions League crown.
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The 28-year-old has now spoken of Haaland’s impact at City, where he likened the Norwegian to a player widely regarded as one of the best ever – Cristiano Ronaldo.
“The goal figures, it’s unbelievable; it’s Cristiano and [Lionel] Messi level, that amount of goals,” Silva remarked.
“Hopefully Erling can keep going that way because we need his goals until the last game of the season. He has definitely got the same mentality as Cristiano, always wanting to be in the box, always wanting to score. He doesn’t care if he touches the ball one or two times, when he touches he scores. He’s just a proper striker.
“We knew what Erling could do before he arrived because he’s been doing that for a few years before he joined us, in Norway, Austria and Germany. We watched him and we played against him, but you never know when he comes here, what level he can get to. But what he’s done so far this season has been amazing and we are really happy to have him with us. He’s definitely a special player and he’s helping us very much. I hope he can get even better.”
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