Erling Haaland is reportedly ready to ‘divorce’ Man City as he has a ‘very distant’ relationship with Pep Guardiola, who has created a ‘bad atmosphere’.
The prolific striker only joined Man City last summer. They activated his £51m release clause to recruit him from Bundesliga side Borussia Dortmund.
Haaland has been in stunning goalscoring form for the Premier League holders this season. He has netted 31 goals in just 27 appearances for them this term across all competitions.
Despite this, Man City find themselves chasing Arsenal in the title race and some have boldly argued that Haaland has made them weaker this season.
Guardiola’s side are having to adapt their style for Haaland and while they do not always get it right, they are quite frightening to watch when they are 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 allude to Joao Cancelo ‘growing tired’ of Guardiola before his loan move to Bayern Munich last month. This is while Bernardo Silva is also ‘planning to leave’ in the coming months.
Though the ‘big bombshell’ is that Haaland has a ‘very distant relationship’ with Guardiola. They put two and two together and presume that this is down to him being ‘very unhappy with the style of play proposed by City’.
The report adds that this could ‘end up triggering an unsalvageable divorce with Guardiola, and his subsequent departure’. How dramatic.
Unsurprisingly, Nacional then proceeds to link Haaland with Real Madrid, who 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 giants could well opt to ‘wait patiently’ until Haaland’s €200m release clause becomes active in 2024.
Last month, Ben Jacobs reported that Haaland’s release clause ‘can only be triggered by non-Premier League clubs’.
‘The more he succeeds, of course, 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,’ Jacobs wrote for Caught Offside.
‘In fact, there’s no active release clause in his contract, though things will change a little in the summer of 2024 when a €200m release clause starts to kick in, and it 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 a great deal – if anyone outside the Premier League wishes to trigger it, they’d still ideally not want to match its terms.’
