9 | Erling Haaland - 2024/25

[Kippax Street 1880]

I work harder than him taking the dog to the park and back. Never see him bursting a lung or getting a sweat on.

Well that's just bollocks or you have the most vigorous dog walk ever.

 

[ChicagoBlue]

He can, we just choose not to do it. The only time we ever pump it to him is out of desperation, and when we do that. The ball won't be good, odds will be heavily against him and they'll be nobody within 20 ft of him anyway.

If we actually set out to play through Haaland, He's shown he can do that extremely well, the two arsenal games a couple of years back are the only times I can recall us ever truly plan to use him in that way and he was very effective. it's not his fault we never do it.

West Ham on his debut was decent. At least we were looking for a through ball, which WAS his meat and drink before Pep decided it wasn’t a high enough percentage pass, so play a 5 yarder to the player next to you.

We should “unleash the hound!” And, by that, I mean either play him the way he needs to be played or shop him for good money while he’s still under a decent length contract and get a 2 for 1 exchange for top strikers.

When you see a good striker highlighted for his success, it is rarely because he’s flourishing in a team that is NOT playing to his natural instincts!

Being a striker, and goal scorer, is 75% instinct on where to be when, in order to receive the ball with an advantage.

Haaland makes those runs all day, every day most games, but as soon as he sees us tippy tapping our way into the opposition half, he realizes his job is to either occupy two defenders or try to create half a yard for himself.

The latter is hard to do when there are about 16 players in the 18 yard box!

 

[bluegaz13]

I think he's stopped making the runs across goal because the ball rarely gets played in by the wide men.

It cost us last night with the low cross from Doku which Haaland failed to anticipate.

 

[Craig]

He can, we just choose not to do it. The only time we ever pump it to him is out of desperation, and when we do that. The ball won't be good, odds will be heavily against him and they'll be nobody within 20 ft of him anyway.

If we actually set out to play through Haaland, He's shown he can do that extremely well, the two arsenal games a couple of years back are the only times I can recall us ever truly plan to use him in that way and he was very effective. it's not his fault we never do it.

Very rare examples of a team taking the game to us and they’ve not done it since. He’s not aggressive enough most of the time for a player with his physicality

 

[Nellies left peg]

Do people really expect a 6ft4 brick shithouse to be pressing like a Suarez 3 games a week all season with no rest? He's clearly shagged already as a result of our batshit insane recruitment policy. Where we spend every waking moment moaning about our players playing too many games and being tired then go into a season with 1 full back 1 dm and 1 striker.

Considering he’s a 6’4” brick shithouse he doesn’t half find his way into the pocket of a lot of defenders.

 

[Mancini’s Pastilles]

If we aint gonna use him properly no point in having him