9 | Erling Haaland - 2022/23 Performances

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Blue and true said:
Infuriating. If Pep hasn't bollocked Gundo for that then Haaland may as well pack his bags and leave. He'd be sitting on 50 goals already if we utilised his runs.
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The thing is the whole thing is obviously rehearsed. Ake into midfield where there’s a triangle and Haaland is on his bike before it’s even got to Gundogan - so why didn’t he follow up with it? So frustrating.
 
The slaughtered lamb said:
That illustrates the problem perfectly, it doesn’t get much better than that situation to play him in. We’re still playing like there’s no striker there. No way he’s leaving though like some are saying.
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Maybe not mate but we are not doing him any favours either . It’s never going to work with this midfield because they can’t or won’t adapt to him . Cone next season if we line up with gundo silva Mahrez and even grealish all at once then it will still be the same I mean even foden doesn’t pass to him either . The rest of this season will be the same I’m afraid .
 
Blue and true said:
Boils my blood that we aren't playing to his strengths. Opening game of the season, De Bruyne plays a surgical through ball into Erling who leaves the entire backline for dead with his pace and finishes first time; can anyone remember us doing the same since? He'll fuck off to Madrid in a couple of years if we aren't maximising his abilities and seriously challenging in the CL. Pep needs to sort it out, that's why he's paid the big bucks. He is hands down the best centre forward in the world but he is completely unsuited to our current mechanical football.
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What makes it worse is that we are playing provably the dullest football in the premier league. If we were smashing it you could say haaland needs to adapt to us but we are not and we need to change .
 
He hasn't been himself lately. i know we aren't helping, but something's a little off with him. Maybe we have forgotten to update his software, I don't know, I just hope it's not his his foot or something more serious.
 
Something that's pretty clear to me now. I've been noticing it more and more.
He obviously has ferocious acceleration. Over ten yards or so, he kind of reminds me of Johah Lomu. A locomotive. He is also virtually impossible to knock off the ball.
But, sorry, he's not very clever with his feet. He gets away with not having a particularly good first touch, especially, because he can accelerate and get to the ball before his marker despite it (not because of it). Sergio had clearly a subtler touch, and his control was just generally better.
Not saying one is better than the other overall, and I'm sure he's a monster who'll score a lot of goals for us. But in pure footballing terms, I actually enjoyed watching prime Aguero more.
 
Today we used the ball to him and he pulled there defence all over and it was great to see but if next week we have jack on one side and Mahrez on the other side then we will once again play crab football . We have see. The blueprint today which can win us this title and pep needs to follow his now for the rest of the season and we will be even better when Kev has rested .
 
It's not really talked about how good his holdup play is. when we do play up to him more direct, he wins practically every header, we just never have any runners to get on to flick ons. I remember when he was at dortmund the general opinion was that despite being huge, he's quite weak with his head, if that was true, it's not anymore.

The balls into him when it's more precise than just a clearance he plays lovely little lay offs either with his feet or head and then he's off in behind, he is brilliant at it, his game is simply phenomenal, we just need to use him better.

27 goals now, a hattrick next weekend against Newcastle would be a nice way to hit 30...
 
ninjamonkey said:
It's not really talked about how good his holdup play is. when we do play up to him more direct, he wins practically every header, we just never have any runners to get on to flick ons. I remember when he was at dortmund the general opinion was that despite being huge, he's quite weak with his head, if that was true, it's not anymore.

The balls into him when it's more precise than just a clearance he plays lovely little lay offs either with his feet or head and then he's off in behind, he is brilliant at it, his game is simply phenomenal, we just need to use him better.

27 goals now, a hattrick next weekend against Newcastle would be a nice way to hit 30...
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Noticed this since he came and have been pleasantly surprised too. Because he’s a tall, traditional number 9 you expect it to be like passing to a brick wall but he has a lot of finesse in terms of laying it off and his first touch. A little clumsy at times, sure, but not Dzeko or Lukaku levels.
 
skillman said:
Noticed this since he came and have been pleasantly surprised too. Because he’s a tall, traditional number 9 you expect it to be like passing to a brick wall but he has a lot of finesse in terms of laying it off and his first touch. A little clumsy at times, sure, but not Dzeko or Lukaku levels.
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Most of all I love that Pep says it himself.. "we need to find Haaland more". A complete contrast to how Zlatan worked out and gave rise to the myth that Pep supposedly hates traditional #9's.

I've also noticed he's gotten a lot better at controlling the ball with his first touch since he first came.

Is his first touch like Mahrez yet? nope, but he's clearly working at it and the improvement is visible!
 
I know it sounds crazy but I'd like to try him as a wide forward so he can run at the defence sometimes.

So I'd like to see the front 3 swap positions throught a game. For example a lineup like this in the next cup game ...

...............Ortega............
Lewis Dias Laporte Ake
...KDB Rodri Bernardo...
Haaland Grealish Foden
 
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