I’m hoping it was just because of it being a friendly. Then again, if there’s one club that could have the best young striker in the world, but still allow someone else to take pens it’s City.Why didn’t he take the Pen ?
Why didn’t he take the Pen ?
Because Haaland believes in hard work, and pens are easy :)Why didn’t he take the Pen ?
Because Mahrez is our penalty taker.Why didn’t he take the Pen ?
Mahrez is first choiceWhy didn’t he take the Pen ?
Why should he?Why didn’t he take the Pen ?
Adding to this...To be clear, i don't mean keep the ball for himself for more than 4 touches. I mean building with the ball, putting it back to the 6 or the 8 and then moving to receive the ball for another touch which positionally causes overloads in other areas. Haalands game right now, and it's not a criticism at all, is the Dortmund fast counter play of laying off and immediately charging into scoring positions - he's probably the best in the world at that. I would probably say Pep doesn't want to completely take that away, but he would want him to be part of the way we build up into the final 3rd rather than just be at the end of it every time.
Adding to this...
Part of Pep's style is ball possession. By building the attack with more passing, it leads to higher possession and thus reduced opposition chances to score.
A large part of the reason why Newcastle were so successful against us is that the game was extremely open, back-and-forth. As both Haaland's and Foden's style is a quick immediate pass and a sprint towards goal, this meant that we had less touches in our buildup - thus contributing to the back-and-forth open game.
This isn't to say that a rapid one-touch counter and quick shot on goal is bad - it's just that this style may possibly lead to an open game which we would rather avoid.
Tifo IRL has a great video about this:
Adding to this...
Part of Pep's style is ball possession. By building the attack with more passing, it leads to higher possession and thus reduced opposition chances to score.
A large part of the reason why Newcastle were so successful against us is that the game was extremely open, back-and-forth. As both Haaland's and Foden's style is a quick immediate pass and a sprint towards goal, this meant that we had less touches in our buildup - thus contributing to the back-and-forth open game.
This isn't to say that a rapid one-touch counter and quick shot on goal is bad - it's just that this style may possibly lead to an open game which we would rather avoid.
Tifo IRL has a great video about this:
Spot on. Giving the ball away with sloppy passes not because we have a rapid striker or because Foden kept losing the ball. Leaving Rodri so exposed by not having Bernado to sit alongside him too. Obviously Pep’s idea was to have Walker and Cancelo alongside Rodri but when they’ve got players who Walker couldn’t catch the gaps were all down the flanks. It also badly exposed Walker’s limited passing game which has always been very limited. He might have done it well against West Ham but Pep went hyperbole calling it one of the best games Walker has ever had. Hopefully Pep reverts to Bernado alongside Rodri and Walker back alongside the 2 centre backs against the pace of Spurs and Arsenal or we might get well beaten.I haven't watched the video but the reason the game was "back and forth" was simply because we kept giving the ball back to them on the transitions enabling them to break at us.
IMO I think he didn't want it because he didn't want to get booed by the Barca fans who were clapping him earlier.They were booing the award of the penalty. Everyone knew it was a soft penalty that probably would not have been given if there was VAR? Haaland was very sheepish about it, and was happy to allow Mahrez to take the attention away from him. Hopefully we now have 2 top penalty takers, and it depends who fancies it.Why didn’t he take the Pen ?
Just spotted this today.....