Chris Sutton tells James Tarkowski he’ll be ‘panned’ as Everton man makes Erling Haaland claim
Chris Sutton told James Tarkowski he would be “panned” after the Everton star opened up on the prospect of facing “unstoppable” Erling Haaland.
The Toffees centre-back was speaking about how difficult it will be to try to stop the in-form Manchester City striker, who already has 17 Premier League goals this season, before Sutton prompted him to clarify that he wasn’t scared of the Norwegian.
Having got him to do so he then suggested the BBC would clip up the quote and use it against him over Halloween.
Speaking live on BBC Radio 5 Live’s Monday Night Club (24 October, 7.56pm) the Toffees defender said: “I hope the goals dry up before we play them. City I think are the most difficult team to play against anyway and now they’ve signed one of the best goal scorers around so it’s only going to get more difficult.
“I don’t really know how you expect to deal with him, get yourself in the best position possible, block as many shots as possible, stop as many runs as possible, but to be honest watching them play sometimes they do look unstoppable.
Sutton cut in: “You’re not terrified though James are you? Let’s just be clear.”
Tarkowski then said: “No, I’m not terrified of anyone. I’m definitely not terrified, there’s more terrifying things than Erling Haaland.”
Finally, a laughing Sutton added: “We’ll clip that up now, ‘There’s more terrifying things than playing against Erling Haaland’. Just in single bit, you’ll be getting panned James.”
Frightening
If anything is going to terrify a centre-back in the top flight right now it probably is Haaland, with Liverpool the only team he hasn’t registered a goal or an assist against so far.
The Toffees defence is a much different prospect than it was last season and should put up much more of a fight when they travel to the Etihad on New Year’s Eve, as well as when Pep Guardiola’s side come to Goodison in the third-last game of the season.
Tarkowski has been in excellent form on the whole this year, and along with Conor Coady will give Frank Lampard as good a chance as any to stop Haaland.
The Everton boss will be desperate to keep the pair fit for as long as possible this season, having already had to deal with numerous injuries within his defensive options to Ben Godfrey, Yerry Mina, Mason Holgate and then Nathan Patterson.
Sutton can’t resist some banter in his punditry most of the time and he is right that Tarkowski’s words will no doubt come back to haunt him if he has a bad day against the reigning champions.
But despite three straight defeats against tough opponents in Manchester United, Tottenham and Newcastle recently, Everton weren’t blown away in any of them, and perhaps with a few lessons learned from those games they can get a few more results.
Visits of the biggest clubs to Goodison tends to bring the best out of this team but if they can replicate some of that on the road they will be a much-different proposition.