Erling Haaland is being failed by Man City - Pep Guardiola needs to find an answer fast

Erling Haaland put pen to paper on a mind-boggling long-term deal when he inked a new Manchester City contract last season. He could be forgiven if he's having a look in the small print for a potential get-out clause.

One that would allow him to escape the Etihad for elsewhere if City, and by extension Pep Guardiola, have lost their Midas touch for good. Because Haaland might well be pocketing a whopping £500,000-a-week as the Premier League's highest-paid player. But make no mistake, the Norwegian goal machine is not happy.

Since he put pen to paper, he has seen City's dominance in domestic football come to an end. Haaland won a historic treble in his debut campaign at the club. Last season, Guardiola's men were deposed as English champions, were dumped out of the Champions League before the knockout stages began properly - against a Real Madrid side comfortably seen off by Arsenal - and lost the FA Cup final to Crystal Palace, thus ending the season without a trophy.

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These were not the reasons Haaland decided to pledge the bulk of his career to the blue half of Manchester. Which might explain why his patience appears to be wearing a bit thin.

Haaland was far from impressed with how Guardiola's side left Monaco feeling, having squandered the lead twice in a Champions League game, Eric Dier's penalty in the 90th minute giving the home side a point in a 2-2 draw on Wednesday night.

Certainly, Haaland has every right to look at what happened and feel disappointed. His two goals had given City every chance of heading home with three points. However, not for the first time this term, he had to watch his brilliance, his outstanding ruthless ability in front of goal, ruined by those at the back.

"It's not good enough," he declared. "Of course I don't feel good we didn't win. We do something unnecessarily in the second half and we don't think we played good enough. We don't deserve to win.

"We need more energy. I don't think it is good enough. Every Champions League game is tough, look at last year when we went out. There are not many teams who have won their first two games."

City are blessed to have him. He is Europe's finest goalscorer, with 52 goals in 50 Champions League games alone. In all competitions, it's 135 in 154 games since joining City in 2022.

But right now he must be thinking what the point of him scoring is, if City's defence cannot keep clean sheets. They've just one in the last four games, they're still painfully vulnerable to the counter attack - and now he's made his point emphatically.

He deserves much better - and Guardiola must find a way for those behind his No.9 to back him up.

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