Manchester City striker Erling Haaland has spoken about the benefits of doing a long pre-season after suffering from the effect of injuries last season.

Haaland still scored 27 goals to claim a second successive Premier League Golden Boot last season, while his tally for City prior to the 2024/25 campaign stood at 90 in 98 appearances.

But a foot injury forced him to miss almost six weeks across December and January, after which he struggled by previous standards with a return of four goals in his next nine Premier League games.

Haaland didn’t go to Euro 2024 over the summer, with Norway’s failure to qualify for the tournament arguably a blessing in disguise because it meant the chance to recover and work out lingering issues.

“It was a good pre-season for me – I’ve never felt better. In general, I don’t have any pain in my body which is the first time for a long time,” Haaland explained after marking the opening Premier League game of the new season with a goal in a 2-0 win over Chelsea.

“It’s amazing – you can push yourself more because you don’t have something in the back of your head. I had a long pre-season, I enjoyed it.”

Pre-season also gave Haaland, now 24 years of age, an opportunity to captain City in the absence of the squad’s senior leadership group – Kyle Walker, Kevin De Bruyne, Ruben Dias, Rodri, Bernardo Silva – in the wake of the European Championship.

“We had a lot of young guns with us and to be captain was amazing, I enjoyed it,” he reflected.

“We have one captain in the team but there are so many leaders in the group. You may not see it, but how calm the defence is and how much confidence they give us, keeping the ball…we have a lot of leaders in this team and I’m so happy to be here. I’m ready to go again.”

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