thing is teams will try to come up with ways to negate him and thats what they should do to be fair after he ripped the league apart last year.
what is important now if they put more defenders on him and try to isolate him more, that will leave more chances, more space but we dont have the wingers for that. Bernardo and Grealish arent the likes of wide players like Salah, Son, Sterling etc pulling in bigger numbers scoring 15-20 or even more.
Bernardo and Grealish most likely to score 5-6 goals in the PL taking up those position on the left and right they usually do and being instructed to cut back, pass back, recycle (dont lose the ball rather than try make something more risky and lose it), thats ok as long as Haaland again scores 35 or so, and Foden, Alvarez greatly improves their tally with KDB, Rodri, Kovacic all deliver around 7-8 each. if any of this does not happen and to be fair if Haaland just scored 26 this season rather than 36 which is still potentially league top scorer number than we need wingers to make up the difference but Grealish can go games without an attempt to score so Pep might need to tune our game bit differently from the wing.
bit worried how we replace all the goals and assists from Gundo and Mahrez. Kovacic will fit but imo he does not have in his locker those end product numbers that Gundo had.
anyone who has more playing time due to these two players gone (like Foden may feature more through the middle, Alvarez maybe from right, or any new winger coming in, Kovacic playing as an 8 etc) will need to add more goals and assists for sure.
for Haaland imo it will be a case he needs to come deeper to be more involved in games where we cannot find him or service him. but then again he wont have runners next to him in the wing to do Kane-like passes which he may develop in his game later on, he comes deep, picks up the ball but has to pass back to midfield or back to wingers rather then turn and make Grealish run into the space and speed forward for a counter himself.
yesterday was rubbish but not fully fit yet imo, all team looked like we are good 2 weeks off yet fitness wise, rightly so as we started lot later than most other teams.
more of an issue was he got zero service, not one time anyone looked to play him in, bit worries me the times KDb will be injured who will be the creative brain. again we need more from wingers imo.
