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Rogers: England can't stop Haaland but can cut his supply

ยทBy Paul Vegas
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Rogers: England can't stop Haaland but can cut his supply

Manchester City/X.com

There is no formula for nullifying Erling Haaland, according to Morgan Rogers - but England believe they can at least starve him of the service that has made him the star of this World Cup.

The Norway striker has scored seven goals at this tournament, level with Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe at the top of the Golden Boot standings, despite going blank in his last four appearances against Rogers' club side Aston Villa.

"Has anyone ever stopped Erling Haaland? I'm not sure they have but we are going to have to try," the Aston Villa forward said. "I think he's such an unbelievable player, the things he does, the numbers he puts up, you're just in awe of how good he is and the level he's at.

"We're going to have to maybe try and stop how they play and work on those things and stop how the balls go into him and how he gets his chances because he's so deadly in front of goal.

"We've got to be aware of that. We've got to know that. But also, it's not just him. They've got other good players as well that we play against regularly in the Premier League that we need to be mindful of. They're a really good team. I think that's what their biggest super strength is, that as a team, as a unit, they're so strong."

England reached the last eight with Sunday's dramatic 3-2 win over hosts Mexico, and Rogers admits he has allowed himself to think about how far this run could go.

"We're human and you can't help think that every game win is a step closer to the end goal, but at the same time if you take your eye off the ball for any second I think that's where you can get punished," he said.

"In this game it's really fine margins. It can be mentality of going into a game that can decide the game and be the difference so I think we have to dust ourselves off.

"We've kind of broke it down to different stages of the tournament and how we attack it and how we see it going, and that can kind of switch our mindset differently and we're all aligned, we're all on the same page of attacking each game in the best way possible really so I think it's difficult. We're all human and we're all excited as we should be."

Norway's win over Brazil in the last 16 confirmed their own first-ever World Cup quarter-final, with kick-off in Miami set for 10pm UK time.