MANCHESTER CITY BOSS Pep Guardiola has explained to the media why he decided to take off Erling Haaland in the 7-0 demolition of German side RB Leipzig on Tuesday.
Haaland scored five goals in the game and took his goal for the season to 39 from 36 this season.
The 22-year-old also became the youngest player to reach 30 goals in the Champions League, the fastest to do it. He also. joined only Lionel Messi and Luiz Adriano in scoring five in a single Champions League match.
The Norwegian recorded hat-trick in first-half stoppage time and would score two more in the second half.
Haaland could have had six, but his manager replaced him with Argentine Julian Alvarez around 60-minutes.
lkay Gundogan and Kevin De Bruyne scored City's other two goals on the night.
🗣️ "His life would be boring. Now he has the target to do it in the future." 😅
Pep Guardiola explains why he took Erling Haaland off before he had the chance to break a record and score six goals in a Champions League match pic.twitter.com/uuxQ6KcM7H— Football Daily (@footballdaily) March 15, 2023
"I told him [Pep] when I went off, I'd love to score a double hat-trick, but what can I do, "said the City goal machine after the game.
Guardiola was asked about his comments after the game and added, "If he achieved this milestone at 22, 23 years old, it will be boring, his life. Now he has a target, that’s why I make the substitution.
"I didn’t know this about Messi against [Bayer] Leverkusen but normally when the game is over, I want to let all the players play as much as possible."
Manchester City will now wait for tonight's Champions League games to finish to gain a better understanding of who they might face in the quarter-final draw.
The draw for the Champions League quarterfinals and semi-finals will take place at 11am (GMT) on Friday, March 17 at the House of European Football in Nyon, Switzerland.
Liverpool take on Real Madrid tonight in one tie, while Napoli play Eintracht Frankfurt in the other
