Man City goal machine Erling Haaland says VAR HELPS him - just days after boss Pep Guardiola claims referees have been against the club for a decade

Erling Haaland claimed that VAR has given him an advantage against defenders as the Manchester City striker looks on course to break his own goalscoring record this season.

The Norwegian has 26 goals in 16 games for club and country so far, having tallied 56 during his best ever campaign when City lifted the Treble.

Pep Guardiola has suggested that he saw a different Haaland report for pre-season training in the summer and the 25-year-old, now part of City’s leadership team, appears set to scale new heights.

Haaland’s attention to detail in attempting to maximise his ability is so pronounced that he quickly reeled off that he’d only been offside on 18 occasions through his Premier League career – and believes VAR is helping him, the technology removing any prospect of erroneous calls in tight situations for somebody who usually stays the right side of the line.

‘It’s not the first season when I was barely offside,’ he said before facing former club Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League. ‘Since I came to City I have been offside 18 times… 18 times in three-and-a-half years is OK. It’s something in my game: I hate to be offside.

‘If you’re offside with VAR you have no chance. I think VAR has helped me even more because you get the decision – it’s simple as that. If you’re barely offside and there is an offside situation, it’s likely that I won’t be offside.

‘It’s something I’ve been working on since I was 13 at Bryne and I’m still playing in the same kind of way… just now I’m quicker, better and faster.’

Haaland – who bashfully insisted that he is ‘far off’ reaching the levels of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo – was described as a humble superstar by Guardiola. The City boss was left surprised by Haaland’s ‘generosity’ towards his team-mates upon joining from Dortmund, with the No 9 now noticeably putting in a greater defensive shift over recent months.

‘It's difficult to find a real, real world class player to be incredibly humble and thinking about what is the best for the team,’ Guardiola said. ‘I have the feeling that he always had an eye on what is best for the team.

‘That is difficult to find in players of this kind of ability or talent, to have that generosity or kindness whatever you want to say. Erling is like that. Normally strikers just think about goals, goals, goals.

Haaland added: ‘I'm a Norwegian guy, I should not think I am something just because I'm scoring goals. It's as simple as that. I'm just Erling, and this is something that will never change.’

That said, while individual records apparently do not act as a motivation, Haaland is fully aware of the numbers that Alan Shearer posted in the league, with the ex-Newcastle captain’s 260 more than attainable if he remains at City for a number of years.

‘I don't really know any records, but this one I know,’ he said. ‘That's his Premier League record. I can't think about records I can break. That's the last thing I think of. I know it's boring, I know you want me to say the completely opposite, but it's not how it is.’