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The Assist

Erling Haaland is the obvious replacement for Sergio Aguero

Manchester City should target the Norwegian ace

Erling Haaland of Norway
Erling Haaland of NorwayCredit: Fran Santiago

Manchester City have given us the biggest clue yet that they will spend big in this summer's transfer window after announcing Sergio Aguero will be leaving the club at the end of the season.

You don't let Aguero go on a free transfer unless you have something special lined up and Erling Haaland arguably has even more to his game than the Argentinian.

On paper, Haaland isn't a typical Guardiola forward.

He is totally different from Lionel Messi, for instance, and even this season Pep has quite often played without a classic number nine. But from what I have seen of him, Haaland would score a crazy amount from the chances created by this City side.

Haaland's mentality is that he wants to become an absolute legend. You can see he wants to smash goalscoring records and I would expect him to settle perfectly into the Premier League because of his extraordinary physicality.

He wants to be a true world-class talent and stylistically the Premier League is the place for him. I know Timo Werner and Kai Havertz have struggled to settle in England from the Bundesliga but Borussaa Dortmund's Haaland looks totally different from them and would hit the ground running with no problem.

Haaland was born in England and it some ways is a classic English striker in the Alan Shearer mould.

The only other name being linked is Harry Kane and I feel a bit for the England skipper.

Daniel Levy is going to want mega-money to part with Kane, and if City look at it from a sensible financial point of view, they can get the same output from Haaland for twice as long comparing the ages of the 27-year-old to the Norwegian, who is remarkably still only 20.

Whoever comes in will do well to have the same impact as City's record goalscorer Aguero and I would have done everything possible to get him to stay on for another season.

I know it's big wages and maybe they felt they owed him a switch but to my mind there have only been three better Premier League performers - Thierry Henry, Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo. Aguero comes next alongside David Silva.

Aguero scored arguably City's most important goal and certainly gave the Premier League its most iconic moment when he won the title with virtually the last kick against QPR.

I loved the way he took on board how Guardiola wanted him to work differently because many forwards would not have fancied doubling their running and would just asked to leave instead.

He has developed under Guardiola from the ultimate goalscorer to more of a team player but still scored bundles of goals.

My money would be on Aguero returning to Spain. If they can afford the former Atletico Madrid man, Barcelona makes sense from a lifestyle point of view and it's well documented he is close to Messi, which always helps.

Scott Minto presents the Racing Post's weekly YouTube football show Different League in association with Betfred


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