Manchester City's star Erling Haaland has made a perfect comeback ahead of the Champions League duel with FC Bayern Munich. After surviving a groin injury, the Norwegian scored twice on Saturday in the sovereign 4-1 (1-0) success of the English football champions at Southampton, last in the table. The team of coach Pep Guardiola receives on Tuesday (21.00 clock in the F.A.Z. live ticker for the Champions League and Prime Video) in the premier class FC Bayern for the quarter-final first leg.
The former Dortmunder provided shortly before the half-time whistle for the City lead. After the 2:0 by Jack Grealish (58th minute), the 22-year-old increased with a spectacular side-kick after Grealish preparatory work to 3:0 (68th). For Haaland, it was already the 30th goal of the season. After the 1:3 by Sékou Mara (72nd), Argentina's world champion Julian Alvarez scored the 4:1 final score (75th) by foul penalty.
With 67 points, Manchester City is currently five points behind leaders FC Arsenal. The Gunners visit Jürgen Klopp's Liverpool FC on Sunday (17.30 hrs/Sky).
Meanwhile, Chelsea FC continued its negative streak in the English Premier League under new interim coach Frank Lampard. The team around the German international Kai Havertz lost on Saturday at Wolverhampton Wanderers with 0:1 (0:1) and is now winless in the league for five games. Chelsea had brought back Lampard as coach until the end of the season after the separation from previous coach Graham Potter on Thursday. He had already coached Chelsea from 2019 to 2021.
Against Wolverhampton, Chelsea showed a disappointing performance and lost deservedly by a goal by Matheus Nunes (31st minute). In eleventh place in the table, Chelsea are already 17 points behind Manchester United in fourth place, who previously won an important victory. The team around the former Bundesliga professionals Jadon Sancho and Marcel Sabitzer prevailed 2-0 (1-0) against FC Everton, but had to cope with the injury of Marcus Rashford. "We have to wait and see, it doesn't look good," said coach Erik ten Hag.
The 44-year-old former international Lampard is to coach Chelsea initially until the end of the season. This has given those responsible time for the search for a new coach. Former Spanish national coach Luis Enrique and Julian Nagelsmann were also recently under discussion after the separation from FC Bayern.