Liverpool reaction to Haaland contract revealed amid ‘dressing room burden’ claim

Erling Haaland has signed a ludicrously expensive and long-term contract at Manchester City but only one question remains: can this be all about Liverpool?

Erling access

There is inevitably an entire load of nonsense written about Erling Haaland on this fine Friday morning, with Shift and 3 keys across the world taking a simultaneous battering.

A begrudging pat on the back is due to The Sun website for the obligatory ‘Erling Haaland to earn nearly £3,000 per hour with new Man City contract’ story, which breaks down how his wages will be equivalent to picking up 82p per second. It is meaningless but unavoidable when a professional athlete’s salary becomes quite so ludicrous.

Rather less necessary is the Daily Mirror website doing Daily Mirror website things.

‘Erling Haaland takes action to put an end to ‘dressing room burden’ claims’ raises immediate headline red flags. Mediawatch consumes a depressing amount of football content yet cannot recall Haaland ever being labelled as such.

But it turns out he was. In September 2022. By Sebastian Kehl, sporting director of the same Borussia Dortmund side who had just sold him.

One might argue that Haaland took action to put an end to claims he was a ‘burden’ in the Borussia Dortmund dressing room in summer 2022 by leaving Borussia Dortmund, not by signing a ridiculous Manchester City contract in winter 2025.

And, well, yeah. Kehl’s ‘burden’ claim was how Haaland’s future at a team known for developing and selling players “had become the subject of every conversation” and that “outside the club, almost everything was exclusively focused on him”.

There has certainly been speculation over whether Haaland might leave Manchester City at some point but in no way is he the only focus at the club, nor are Dortmund and Manchester City’s circumstances nearly the same. So the ‘dressing room burden’ stuff is predictable nonsense.

Haaland cattle

But fair play because this effort from the Daily Mirror website did evoke a laugh.

‘Erling Haaland sets out three targets after signing astonishing new Man City contract’ is standard headline fodder for some banal quotes from an elite-level professional footballer targeting, say, trophies, goals and records. Those right there are three entirely Haaland-adjacent targets it is easy to envisage him or indeed any other vaguely media-trained player to set out.

Except this is obviously something far more absurd:

“Now I want to keep developing, keep working to get better and look to do my best to try and help us achieve more success going forward.”

It is basically a professional athlete finding three slightly different ways to say he wants to keep being good at professional athleting.

MORE ON HAALAND’S MAD CONTRACT FROM F365

👉 Haaland signs staggering deal until 2034 as clauses are ‘removed’ in Real Madrid blow

👉 A timeline of the highest-paid Premier League players ever, from £10k Barnes to half-a-million Haaland

Contract killers

Confirmation that this is the biggest story in football comes from the Liverpool Echo, and their ‘Erling Haaland signs Premier League’s biggest ever contract as Liverpool watch on,’ which includes a single solitary mention of Liverpool in quite literally the last word.

Are all clubs negotiating contract extensions ‘as Liverpool watch on’ now? Does a copy of every deal need to be sent to Anfield for it to mean more?

Trophy wife

In more Manchester City news – not really but you get the point – Cristina Serra has seemingly had a well-timed promotion from ‘fashion boss wife’ to ‘Pep’s fashion powerhouse wife’ in another Daily Mirror story.

Perhaps she can focus on that instead of definitely ruining Manchester City’s season.

Ru the day

No Manchester United outlet tries to pretend that there is any sort of angle from which to approach the Haaland news through an Old Trafford lens so the sensible decision is made to instead focus on some actual football.

Their victory over Southampton lifted Manchester United to the heady heights of 12th in the Premier League table and certainly helped the continued change in mood at the club.

A fifth win in 14 games for Ruben Amorim was stirring enough for him to ‘reveal details of private Sir Jim Ratcliffe Man Utd meeting,’ at least according to the Daily Mirror website.

The Portuguese is outspoken but it feels unlikely that he would divulge the contents of a one-on-one ‘meeting’ between him and his boss.

But the victory led to Amorim ‘opening up on what was said between the two’ during what was essentially an informal chat, and at this point it really is quite obvious that what is being promised cannot possibly be delivered. To the quotes in question we go:

“I had five minutes with him to talk about different things about the game. It was not a good game but in the end, the result helped the conversation.”

A reminder that this is supposed to be Amorim ‘revealing details’ and ‘opening up’ about a conversation, not offering a vague mention as to how long it lasted and discussing basically nothing more about it.