Jamie Carragher has defended Erling Haaland after the forward was mocked on social media following Liverpool’s win against Man City in the Community Shield.
Liverpool and Manchester City faced off at The King Power Stadium on Saturday evening in the curtain-raiser for the 2022/23 campaign.
Community Shield clashes are often reminiscent of a friendly with an inconsequential trophy up for grabs.
No-one cares about Liverpool and Manchester City because it’s HAALAND V NUNEZ TIME BABY
But Saturday’s game was very competitive as Liverpool and Man City set their stall out ahead of the new season.
Liverpool took control of the game via Trent Alexander-Arnold’s deflected shot in the 21st minute.
There was a frantic end to the game as summer Julian Alvarez capitalised on some trademark sloppy goalkeeping from Adrian to equalise.
Darwin Nunez was brought on with half an hour to go and he caused City lots of problems.
Mohamed Salah’s penalty restored Liverpool’s lead before Nunez finished off a slick move in stoppage time to make it 3-1.
Reds boss Jurgen Klopp praised his new striker post-match, suggesting everyone at Liverpool was pleased to see him score:
“I think Darwin would have been fine even without scoring the third one because the penalty was Millie’s (James Milner’s) cross and his header,” Klopp said (via Reuters).
“You could see in his face, you could see in the face of all his team mates how happy the boys are for him and that’s a really good sign after that short period of time that he is with us.
“Probably one of the highlights of the game, as good as we were, was the impact from the bench. Everybody who came on was immediately in the game – very, very, very helpful.”
Nunez impressed but the same cannot be said for Erling Haaland. He made his first competitive appearance for City against Liverpool after moving to the Premier League earlier this summer for £51m plus add-ons.
His frustrating afternoon was topped off in stoppage time, as his strike from close range clipped the bar and went over.
In the long term, this will likely do the prolific forward the world of good, which is a worrying prospect for the rest of the Premier League.
While they can though, fans of other clubs mocked Haaland on social media after the Community Shield.
Nunez experienced something similar when he missed a sitter for Liverpool earlier in pre-season. Carragher has responded (via Twitter) to these “banter complications”:
“The Haaland…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Football365…