9 | Erling Haaland - 2023/24

[ford7]

Yes Haaland did break records last season and he deserved to, he's a very special player and no one can take that away from him. My conclusion is still that, he has been figured out and it's up to him to adapt and evolve his game. His goal scoring drought, didn't start this season, you can go back to the end of last season, from about the UCL quarter finals, he was already struggling to score goals.

He became predictable, yeah, but that's not the whole story imo. He also ran out of gas and lost his sharpness which is more worrying. He was still getting chances for the most part. Remember his infamous performance against Leeds at the end of the last season where he missed shocking amount of sitters? I think there's more to this than just him becoming predictable.

 

[super_city_si]

Like much of the team. Naff first half. Actually started holding the ball up in the second which helped us. Noticed though, when we were pinging it long to him, he had no city player within 15 yards of him. Not really much he can do with that but I thought he gave it a good go and held up way more than the first half.

 

[dancity19]

Quick question to the Uber-cool Haaland Haters.

Who would you replace him with?
How much would that player cost?
How much would you expect to receive for a fraud like big Erl? £20m. £30m tops, yeah?
Why do you think the greatest manager in the entire history of the game keeps picking him?
Is Pep shit too?

Okay, they were actually several questions. Answers on a postcard, addressed to:

Mr Fuck off you entitled pricks,
#1 You’re thick as fuck Avenue,
Little Hamptons,
City are a giant now, get used to it-shire.

Haha.

Must always remember you can’t question players performances.

 

[DD]

Not really - the point I’m making is there are a lot of big games he hasn’t done enough in. I’ve tried to limit it to distinctly big games. And there will be more he hasn’t scored in, than has.

If you’re comfortable with his big game return then so be it. I look at that and am a bit disappointed. Feel free to include tough games against good defences or big occasions where he has scored to prove me wrong.

He was brought in to be the difference maker in these kind of games.

I would have expected him to score at least once in one of those games I mentioned…..my point isnt about goals per game, it’s the number of big games he hasn’t scored in or impacted enough.

And this sums it up to a tee.

When we signed Haaland I had one big concern about him at Dortmund, and that was that he doubled and trebled down on sides, often when the game was won, but failed to score in more games than he did, and looked like a bit of a plank in such games.

When we signed Haaland, we already had the best team in the world and one that scored a hell of a lot of goals. However, what we did have was a tendency to be profligate in some games, and we signed him to remedy that.

Of course, he's a great goalscorer against the poor to decent sides. In fact, in those games, he has an average akin to Dixie Dean at his peak. Is what we need, though, somebody who will score hat-tricks in games we are likely to win anyway? Do we need a stat-padder? When I'm looking at vital goals at vital times, I can see he did it a couple of times against Everton and Brentford and for that we were grateful, but there haven't been many other occasions. The goals come in spurts against teams who can't get a grip of us, and even then, he's far from prolific. He misses a sack load of sitters. He just happens to be the best in the world at losing poor defenders, and that skillset is the entire reason why he's so revered. Not because of the quality of his finishing.

The key issue is that in the big games we are playing with a sack of spuds up front who simply isn't contributing to the team. We are effectively playing with ten men, and top defences find him very easy to nullify.

I look at the truly great strikers and they don't always have to rely on service. Sergio Aguero, for example, was a proper footballer who could fashion chances for himself, who could score out of nothing. Haaland isn't fit to be mentioned in the same breath as Sergio, at least not the current version.

At the end of the day, if you use a flat goals to game ratio, then Haaland will always be up there with the greatest, but it masks a very real problem, and that is that the greatest goal scorer of all against crap defenders is actually rank average when playing against quality defenders. This wasn't what we bought him for.

 

[Craig]

Haha.

Must always remember you can’t question players performances.

Yeah, especially when it’s on a players performance thread. One of the most complete centre forward displays i’ve ever seen last night. So much so the centre half even had to continually mark him.

 

[ford7]

Why can't Erling be more like the almighty Kane and similar elite strikers who always show up in the biggest moments in the biggest games and who are capable of carrying their teams on their backs? We are stuck with a stat padder who only shows up against the small teams :( Imagine where would we be right now if we had Kane???? *checks Bundesliga table* - almost 20 points off top!!!

 

[Craig]

Why can't Erling be more like the almighty Kane and similar elite strikers who always show up in the biggest moments in the biggest games and who are capable of carrying their teams on their backs? We are stuck with a stat padder who only shows up against the small teams :( Imagine where would we be right now if we had Kane???? *checks Bundesliga table* - almost 20 points off top!!!

So are you saying Kane doesn’t have a brilliant all round game or hasn’t scored shitloads against top teams for years in the premier league whilst playing in a fairly ordinary side?

 

[donsmoke]

Why can't Erling be more like the almighty Kane and similar elite strikers who always show up in the biggest moments in the biggest games and who are capable of carrying their teams on their backs? We are stuck with a stat padder who only shows up against the small teams :( Imagine where would we be right now if we had Kane???? *checks Bundesliga table* - almost 20 points off top!!!

Sometimes you have to learn to put your bias aside, Haaland is not even half the player Kane is, he has better movement than him, positioning we may debate, but Kane can score you every type of goal that you expect of a striker, is part of the build up, links up play and can score a goal out of nothing.
When examined closely, Haaland is a stat padder and very limited when up against any decent defender, that doesn't mean he wasn't great for us last season.

He's at Bayern, so there's no point event thinking about him, but please behave.

 

[AirbagsOptionalTheReturn]

My view on our super Viking is that he gets absolutely no protection because he is so big. Anytime the ball is played to him he is being fouled constantly by defenders and nothing is ever given. This started last year when Rudiger basically assaulted him all game at their place. We got nothing and it seems like other teams watched and now copy that tactic. With this and our seeming unwillingness to play him in early, it’s appears to be impacting his confidence and desire. Not sure how we change this other than to play more risky balls into the channels and less balls directly into him to hold up as that is when he is basically getting cheated by the refs. I am hoping next season Pep will adjust the way we use him to minimise the opportunity for opponents to basically just cheat against him

 

[Kazzydeyna]

I still maintain Kane would have been the better buy but he obviously wasn’t available at that point. Put him in our team and he would similar numbers to haaland as well as huge assist numbers. Kane also is better in the build up, better in the air and has a better passing range.

If you play on the counter there is probably no better striker than haaland. How we play there are better options for us imo

I don’t agree Kane would have been better than Haaland. He’d have scored a shed load of goals of course but better? Not for me.
He’d also have cost three times as much (minimum £150m plus we’d have been directly strengthening a rivals financials), be on at least the same wages and he’s 31 in a few months with little to no sell on value.
Couple that with big Erl’s worldwide appeal vs Kane’s limited domestic appeal and we’d likely be looking at a total financial package of many hundreds of millions against Haaland total package of near zero when you consider the future transfer profit alongside the financial benefits having the worlds best striker playing for us brings.
Not to forget that signing Kane has lead to Bayern losing their title for the first time in a decade.
Coincidence? I think not.

Not for me, Kane. A media darling (in the uk) for sure. An upgrade on Haaland? Not for me. Not even close.

I have always maintained we could have signed prime Messi at this club and we’d have had to read many of the bluemoon massive digging him out after a few months.

Can someone please tell me who was available then or now for £51m that would’ve been even half as effective? (Apart from Troy Deeney obvs. That’s a given)