Manchester City’s new hotrod striker Erling Haaland will be going head to head with Liverpool forward Darwin Nunez as the Premier League title rivals prepare to unveil their expensive new recruits in this Saturday’s Community Shield.
The curtain raiser to the Premier League season will be piling the pressure on Haaland and Nunez to start providing early proof of justification of their hefty price tags even in the early kick off as the pair represent over £100 million ($121 million) of goalscoring firepower as the rivalry between City and Liverpool continues to intensify.
Much has changed at both Anfield and the Etihad since Pep Guardiola’s side pipped the Reds to the title by one solitary point after a thrilling last surge victory over Aston Villa on the final day of the season, culminating in City’s fourth title in five seasons being fitting reward for their incredible consistency. Regardless, we can be sure that Guardiola being the perfectionist that he is, he would certainly not be content to rest on his laurels.
Pep sanctioned the sales of Gabriel Jesus and Oleksandr Zinchenko to Arsenal, while another stalwart Raheem Sterling joined Chelsea and Fernandinho made a return to Athletico Paranaense.
Guardiola had all this while been acutely aware that City’s success last season was achieved despite their lack of a natural central striker, hence he made a blockbuster move for one of Europe’s brightest young wunderkinds, landing Norway international Haaland from Borussia Dortmund for £51 million.
Guardiola is indeed most hopeful Haaland can emulate his prolific form at Dortmund in the more demanding Premier League, after having failed to prise Harry Kane away from Tottenham 12 months ago,
22-year-old Haaland’s ability to razzle and dazzle with City’s array of creative talents would definitely be one of the key storylines in defining the new season’s title race.
Even at this early juncture the signs are already promising as Haaland took just 12 minutes to score on his City debut in a friendly against Bayern Munich.
“As you probably all know, I’ve been watching a lot of City games for the last years,” Haaland said.
“The last years (they) have been without a striker, so of course I’ve been seeing myself in these kind of situations. I’m not surprised. The quality is good.”
To further underline their unrelenting ambitions, City signed England midfielder Kalvin Phillips from Leeds for £42 million.
Meanwhile as City gear up to start the season as title favorites regardless of the result this weekend at the Community Shield, Liverpool’s threat to their supremacy is always a clear and present danger.
Jurgen Klopp and his men came within two games of football immortality after spending the second half of the season going for broke in their enthralling chase to win an unprecedented quadruple. Alas, despite history being in touching distance, the Reds were painfully amiss as City won the Premier League title before Real Madrid beat them 1-0 to edge them out in the Champions League final.
Ending up finally with only the FA and League Cups in hand – beating Chelsea on penalties – was scant consolation for a manager with Klopp’s primal drive and ambition.
Liverpool have since then finally ended speculation over Mohamed Salah’s future by tying the Egypt star to a new contract although the departure of Sadio Mane to Bayern Munich was undoubtedly a major blow, but the Reds filled the void left by the Senegal forward by forking out an initial £64 million, that could rise to a club record £85 million, to sign Nunez from Benfica.
Despite enduring a roller-coaster pre-season with an embarrassing miss against Manchester United followed by a four-goal demolition of Leipzig, then a blank in a defeat against Salzburg, the 23-year-old Nunez has still shown signs that he is up for the challenge as premature comparisons will inevitably be made between him and Haaland this weekend.
Klopp was quick to defend the Uruguay striker, saying: “He needs much more support around him. You keep other players busy so they cannot focus on him. It is like it is, it doesn’t feel great, but we take it and go from here.”
Victory in the Shield this Saturday will no doubt be only a footnote when the major prizes are finally presented to the eventual winners at the end of the season, yet Klopp if fully cognisant of the psychological significance of any win over England’s pre-eminent force.
“The situation is that it’s a very important game, but the situation is that we still have to prepare a season, so we cannot ignore that,” Klopp said.
“Will it [the Community Shield] show a lot about the season? I expect two good teams.”
From Klopp that is already saying a lot.