Everton defender Conor Cody has admitted he shied away from a confrontation with Erling Haaland during a Premier League game.
What happened between Conor Cody and Erling Haaland?
It looks as though this is destined to be a pretty amazing debut season in English football for the prolific goalscorer.
Indeed, Haaland has won the league, the FA Cup, and could make it a treble if Manchester City beat Inter in the Champions League final this week.
In that period of 52 games, the 22-year-old also happens to have scored 52 goals as well as provided nine assists – remarkable stuff really.
It’s no surprise then, that he’s scored one goal each time he played Everton this term, netting both home and away this term. However, in the match at the Etihad, you could say Ben Godfrey rattled Haaland somewhat.
Indeed, the defender opted to be rather physical on the day and succeeded in getting under his skin – as shown by this footage of the City striker pulling a funny face during the game.
While talking about the match on BBC Sounds recently though, Godfrey’s teammate Coady has now spoken about the incident from his point of view.
The Englishman said: “What was funny about it, there’s a little story to that. So we obviously said Ben’s a big strong lad, isn’t he?
“And we obviously said we’ll try and get into him [Haaland] a little bit. Do you know what I mean? Make him feel that he’s in a game. And so Ben, about 30 seconds in gave him a bit, stood on the back of his foot or whatever it was and Haaland stayed down for a little bit.
“So Haaland didn’t know who it was, right? So I’m stood in the middle of a back three and I’m trying to talk, next minute he’s walking towards me.
“Big massive fella, isn’t he? So as he’s walking towards me, I’m looking at him, and he went: ‘was that you?’ and I said ‘no, it was him’ [pointing at Godfrey] and he went ‘ok’ and walked off!”
What did Godfrey say about his fight with Haaland?
It’s clear from Cody’s facial expression that he wanted absolutely no part of any sort of fight with the sizeable Haaland at that particular moment.
You can hardly blame him either as the Man City star has bullied defenders up and down England this term, breaking the Premier League record for the most goals scored in a signed season with his 36 strikes.
At least Godfrey enjoyed the ball, telling TV after (via TalkSport): “Godfrey also said he enjoyed the battle, commenting: “I don’t need to tell you Erling Haaland’s a good player. I just had to do my job.
“Yeah of course he was [upset]. You could see his reaction. He got his goal and is always causing people problems and it’s those challenges you have to look forward to.”