Pep Guardiola says Erling Haaland wants titles over records after second Man City hat-trick

Pep Guardiola says Erling Haaland will not be content with breaking Premier League records if he doesn't back them up with titles, as the striker scored a second successive hat-trick for Manchester City in the win over Nottingham Forest.

After scoring three goals in 18 minutes to help City comeback in the second half against Crystal Palace at the weekend, Haaland picked up where he left off with another brutal hat-trick within 27 first-half minutes against Forest. That took his tally for City to nine goals and one assist in five Premier League games since his summer move from Borussia Dortmund - a record no player has previously achieved.

And Guardiola said after the Forest win that the records will mean nothing to both Haaland and the club if City cannot win titles to go along with them.

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"What he has done in Norway, Austria and Germany he tries to do here," Guardiola said. "The first ball contact, he scores a goal. We knew it. Julian as well, we have incredible strikers.

"He always scores goals. He is stoppable when we don’t play good. We try to play in a decent way for the fact that we create opportunities for our talented players up front to score goals.

"I think what we want is win the titles. Knowing him a little bit, I don’t know if he’d be happy breaking records if we didn’t win titles. If we play good, he’ll have more chances. How good Stones played, Walker, Rodri and Bernardo. This is our target, to help the talented players – Julian, Kevin, Riyad – to show their quality."

Guardiola also distanced any comparisons between Haaland and Sergio Aguero, despite remarkably similar records when joining City as