Manchester City worry as Erling Haaland 'doubts' emerge ahead of contract talks: report

Manchester City striker Erling Haaland may have drawn a blank for the first time this season in the Premier League at the weekend in a 1-1 draw with Newcastle United, but there will be no doubts over the striker’s importance with the team.

A blistering start to the season has seen him net ten goals in eight matches across all competitions so far this term, as Pep Guardiola’s men target a record-extending fifth consecutive Premier League title.

The 24-year-old has netted 100 goals in 106 appearances for Manchester City since his 2022 arrival from Borussia Dortmund, with FourFourTwo ranking him as the best striker in the world. City, therefore, are understandably looking to extend his current contract which runs until 2027.

Manchester City's contract 'doubts' over Erling Haaland

Reports in Spain, cited by TEAMtalk, have put a question mark next to the Norwegian’s future plans.

They claim that with the club keen to tie him down to a longer-term deal as soon as they can, the player is "starting to rethink his future at the club" and that Haaland is "considering not accepting the renewal proposals that are on the table" amid "doubts about his continuity".

While the players is said to be comfortable at City, they add that his future ambitions mean that he may look to explore other opportunities in the "near future".

A scenario where the forward "considers the possibility of forcing his exit next season" is also mooted, with the player said to want a £100million release in his new contract, a figure that would put him in easy reach of Europe’s biggest clubs.

This report follows on from previous links to Real Madrid, with former Bernabeu favourite Guti claiming he should be his old side’s ‘next target’, while earlier this year reports in the Spanish media claimed that Haaland was unhappy living in Manchester, citing the city’s poor weather as a push factor for the Leeds-born star.

In FourFourTwo’s opinion, it would be something of a surprise if Haaland was not the subject of regular links to Real Madrid. The City’s man goalscoring record and the transfer tactics of the Spanish press all point towards this being a fact of life.

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Haaland is valued at €180million by Transfermarkt - the joint highest figure of any player on the planet, alongside Real Madrid trio Jude Bellingham, Vinicius Junior and Kylian Mbappe - so City will obviously want to tie him down for as long as they can.

On the other side of the equation, at the age of 24, it would be naive to expect the player to rule out of moving clubs, so fans will need to get used to these sort of stories.