Pep Guardiola praises 'unstoppable' Erling Haaland after West Ham hat-trick | Premier League

Pep Guardiola said not even a set-piece defender would be able to stop Erling Haaland after the striker scored his second consecutive hat-trick in Manchester City beat West Ham 3-1.

Haaland, who has started the new campaign with seven goals in City's first three games, is returning to his best after struggling with a fitness problem at the end of last season.

“He's playing much better in everything,” Guardiola said. “He stays on for 20 minutes or half an hour after training. Last season he didn't play even once because he wasn't feeling well, tired, with discomfort.”

“What he needs is for the team to give him more balls in the final third. We are going to create those situations. He is unstoppable, there is no central defender, not even with a gun, who can stop him.”

Guardiola was delighted with Haaland's overall play. “He always scores goals and that's what he has to do,” said the City boss. “We're happy with another hat-trick, with the quality of finishing, but today he was involved in the game, he didn't lose a single ball and he played unbelievable, not only with the ball but also defensively and offensively.”

“I am very happy for him, but now the pre-season is officially over. The international break marks the start of the real season, so we will see how he recovers from this amount of games. I am not a physiotherapist or a doctor, so I don’t know (about his recovery).

“Not just Erling, but everyone. Today we made just one change because Savinho couldn’t play and in these three games we played with more or less the same team for many reasons: Rico (Lewis) and (Mateo) Kovacic deserve to play, but from now on everyone will play because we can’t keep up this pace every three days for 11 months. All the players look fit. Matheus Nunes provided an assist as did Kevin De Bruyne. Everyone played very well.”

Another boost for City, who have won their opening three games, was seeing Jack Grealish shine in his first start since April. The winger was a surprise absentee from Gareth Southgate's England squad for Euro 2024 but was in fine form two days after being called up to the national team by Lee Carsley.

“He is really good,” Guardiola said. “He was aggressive off the ball, but especially on the ball against (Aaron) Wan-Bissaka and he did some good things. Hopefully he can come back fit and better. I would like all my English players to go to the national team when they are fit and the same with the other nationalities. I don’t like it when they are not fully fit and they leave, but with the power of the national team we have nothing to say.”