For a club facing fines, points deductions, title stripping and possible relegation, the public picture is chaos. In the room where Erling Haaland is actually spending this week, teammates say they would struggle to tell.

Kristoffer Ajer, the Brentford defender who has lined up alongside Haaland for Norway for years, told reporters in the build-up to the Nations League trip to Cardiff that the Manchester City striker looks like a man carrying nothing.

“No not at all. Ever since I met him brings lot of energy and joy to the group,” Ajer said when asked whether Haaland seemed burdened by the verdict against his club.

“He’s been exactly the same the last few days as well which is not a surprise for me.”

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An independent commission on 29 September found City guilty on 114 of 115 charges relating to breaches of Premier League financial rules between 2009-10 and 2017-18, including the use of so-called sham commercial contracts that disguised around £900m in secret funding. Punishment is yet to be decided and the club are expected to appeal.

Haaland is the biggest name on the City roster and already a magnet for interest. Arsenal and Real Madrid are reported to be monitoring his situation with a 2027 move in mind. None of that reaches the Norway dressing room, Ajer suggested.

Ajer insists Haaland is unchanged by stardom

Ajer’s praise was unprompted, and emphatic.

“The biggest compliment I always give is that he hasn’t changed a bit from the moment I met him even though he’s the biggest star on the planet right now,” he said.

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“He’s the best player in the world if you ask me, so hopefully he scores a few tomorrow.”

Ajer also played down the idea that the Norway camp has been consumed by the fallout at the Etihad.

“We don’t talk about it much here,” he said. “We haven’t really had any fantastic discussions about it.”

Norway manager Stale Solbakken declined to go further when pressed on what he and his No 9 have discussed privately, telling reporters only: “What we speak about is between him and me.”

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Record scorer heads to Cardiff

The football backdrop is as flattering as the political one is bruising. Haaland is the all-time leading scorer in the Nations League with 22 goals, and arrives in Cardiff on the back of two in Norway’s 3-2 win over Denmark and one in the 2-1 defeat to Portugal.

Kick-off at the Cardiff City Stadium is at 7:45pm local time on Thursday.

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