Craig Bellamy does not believe Erling Haaland will be distracted by Manchester City being found guilty of all charges related to serious breaches of the Premier League's financial rules by an independent commission. The Wales boss made the claim ahead of Haaland's first match for Norway since the findings became public.
Haaland's record and Bellamy's praise
Haaland, 26, is set to face Bellamy's Wales in his first match since the verdict was officially revealed. However, the striker did play on Sunday, two days after reports first emerged about the outcome, scoring the equaliser in a 2-1 loss to Portugal. That was Haaland's 65th goal in 57 caps for his country. The Norwegian has never played against Wales before.
Speaking at his pre-match press conference, Bellamy said of Haaland: "I don't think he'd be distracted. The guy is a machine. Do you see his record at the international level? He just wants to score, that ain't stopping."
Adapting to the Haaland factor
Bellamy compared the striker to former New Zealand rugby union player Jonah Lomu, saying: "When you see certain moments in sporting careers, or certain sports, you remember the Jonah Lomu factor? We're coming through the Haaland factor at this present moment. Now we will adapt; the game will adapt. Now, how we'll combat that is another challenge."
He added: "What always remains is that he's always alive. Once that ball comes into the box, he's always alive. We're talking about a world-class player at the top end; this is what it is."
Norway camp's response
Norway head coach Stale Solbakken shared a similar sentiment, saying Haaland was looking "very good" and "scoring goals." The former Wolverhampton Wanderers manager said: "He missed one chance against Portugal, one he usually doesn't miss, but that's the only thing I can say as a negative, he's on fire."
Pushed on whether they had spoken about the situation, Solbakken said: "What we speak about is between him and me," adding: "I don't want to deal with that, I don't know how to deal with it. Maybe you have to go to a couple of other press conferences in the near future. It's not for me to go into that issue, that's not one per cent part of my job."
Haaland's team-mate Kristoffer Ajer claims there has been no change in the striker either. The Brentford player said: "He's been exactly the way he always is with the national team. He's really focused on the upcoming games, and I think he's trying to do the same as everyone else in waiting to see what the outcome is, but right now the main focus is Wales tomorrow night."
On the story as a whole, Ajer said: "Actually, we've not talked too much about it. Obviously, there was a statement released yesterday, so it's quite fresh and new. We're just footballers, we don't know all the ins and outs and all the stuff that's been talked about in the media, so we haven't really had any discussions about it."
Ajer added: "I have to admit, I honestly have read very little into it right now. I guess it's four games going out so quickly, so I need to recover and prepare for that, so that's been my main focus. I know that there's so many people that know so much more about this situation than me, so I need to understand that situation more before I can give any comment on it."
