Erling Haaland missed the chance to break Cristiano Ronaldo’s record for fewest games needed to score 100 goals for one club.

The Norway international came into Wednesday’s meeting with Inter on 99 goals in 103 games, knowing one strike would see him break Ronaldo’s record of 100 in 105 matches for Real Madrid.

However, he failed to find the back of the net and can now only tie Ronaldo’s record, with Haaland needing to score in Sunday’s Premier League meeting with Arsenal – his 105th appearance for City – if he is to level the Portugal legend’s feat.

Manager Pep Guardiola jumped to Haaland’s defence after the 0-0 draw, admitting Inter did an excellent job of marking him out of the game.

“There were six players around him,” Guardiola said. “Six. Three behind, three in front. That’s how they kept him out of the game.

“That makes it difficult for any player. [Francesco] Acerbi, [Alessandro] Basotni were five metres away from him, [Hakan] Calhanoglou, [Piotr] Zielinski in front of him. That’s tough.

“We tried to use the spaces, that’s why [Ilkay] Gundogan had a couple of chances but Inter were stronger than us physically. We needed to get more players up alongside Erling and that’s what we did. I knew that Inter would defend like that.”

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