Pep Guardiola hails Erling Haaland’s ‘contagious mentality’ after hat-trick against Nottingham Forest

Pep Guardiola hailed Erling Haaland’s “contagious mentality” after he netted a second successive hat-trick for Manchester City.

The Norway international now has nine goals in his first five Premier League games.

“What he has done in Germany, he has done here,” said City manager Guardiola. “First ball contact, first goal. We have incredible strikers, incredible sense of smell for goals.

“Of course Haaland is stoppable if we don’t play good. The reason we always try to play well is to give our attacking players a chance to score goals.

“What Haaland wants is to win titles. Knowing him, he would not be happy to break records if we don’t win titles.”

Haaland’s tally of nine goals in his first five games is one more than club legend Sergio Aguero, who also holds the record for most Premier League hat-tricks (12).

“Sergio is the legend,” said Guardiola. “Nobody can break the position in the hearts of City fans, scoring the most important goal in the modern history. Erling has the quality to be there.

“What Sergio has done is amazing. But Erling has this talent. When City bought Erling, everybody talked about what he has done in the past. What we wanted to do is help him. Hopefully he can enjoy and score more goals.”

Another summer addition, Julian Alvarez, netted twice in the win, while Joao Cancelo scored from outside the box.

City have now scored 19 goals in five matches, only dropping points in a 3-3 draw with Newcastle.

“The numbers speak for themselves, we are prolific,” added Guardiola.

“Against Newcastle we could not control transitions, against Palace we could not control set pieces. We controlled these today.

“Julian, we have seen from day one how he behaves, we have incredible opinions of him. The scouting department told me about him for a year and a half, he is special. Now we are enjoying having two strikers with incredible quality.

“These two players are so young, they want to prove themselves to the world, in the toughest league in the world. They have the ambition to win titles, to score goals. This gives extra energy for all of us. Step by step, game by game, we will be getting better.”

Guardiola added to the BBC: “Julian and Erling have a special sense for the goal, it is difficult to buy or teach. The two goals from Julian are amazing, and Erling’s mentality is contagious for our team.”

City will be fancied to rack up more goals when they travel to struggling Aston Villa on Saturday.