Manchester City cannot afford to be preoccupied with stopping Erling Haaland, warns midfielder Rodri ahead of their Champions League outing.
Haaland will be the danger man to watch out for, but Borussia Dortmund boast other players that can cause problems, says Rodri.
Haaland is the most sought-after young forward in world football, having scored 49 goals in as many games for City’s opponents tomorrow in Borussia Dortmund.
The 20-year-old became the youngest player to score 20 Champions League goals, taking just 14 games to reach that figure, but Rodri said City must not focus too much on suppressing him.
In the build-up to the game, all the talk so far has centered around the Norwegian. Such talk has been further ignited by the fact that City are among the interested suitors in the youngster’s signature.
However, Rodri is not getting carried away by Haaland and warns his teammate to focus on their opponents as a team.
“Of course it’s impressive, his performances since he appeared,” said Rodri as quoted by Manchester Evening News.
“He’s only 20 and scoring lots of goals, but we are not focused on only one player.”
“Dortmund are a big, big team in Europe. They have a mix of young and experienced players.”
“They have an offensive squad, so we have to be aware and try and play our game.”
“But we don’t focus on individual players. In the videos, we analyse them as a team and the players who usually play.”
Rodri added: “There are some players I don’t know much about, as they are very young, but I think they have an unbelievable squad.”
“They play with four dangerous players and they have a very anarchic type of game – they try to punish you on the counter-attack.”
“We have to take the ball, take responsibility and avoid counter-attacks for those kind of players who are dangerous in these spaces.”
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