Manchester City defender Manuel Akanji admits he was begging for Erling Haaland to score in Tuesday's defeat of Brentford.

Haaland struck on 71 minutes as City won 1-0 on the night.

Akanji said: "It wasn't easy. We scored a goal on the counter-attack. The defender slipped early and the efficiency was there [from Erling Haaland]. He scored a great goal.

"We know how hard it is to play against Brentford, with their back five. That's why we tried to attack and we didn't run into too many counter-attacks. I can't remember too many big chances they had.

"After the weekend we had to show a reaction and I feel we did that. Now we have to improve game by game."

On Haaland's goal, he added: "I was just thinking: 'Please score!' The second chance we had, we failed to finish the game. Unfortunately the keeper made a save, but we got the win."