9 | Erling Haaland - 2025/26

His love for City will never diminish.

But he won’t stay at City for 10 more years if City aren’t seriously challenging for the PL title, the CL, and other trophies.

Real Madrid and Barcelona will always be at the back of his mind and an ever increasing and tempting option.

Not that Barcelona can afford him.


Weirdly it doesn't matter if we have him or don't have him or even who manages us we score more goals as a team without him.

That's not me hating on our big Viking that's just what is.
 
Not every. Just the ones when he is 1 v 1 with the goalkeeper. He should be scoring 90% of those. He has missed the last 4.

Its like missing 4 straight penalties. It looks bad no matter How many others you bang in.
I think it’s fair to say his 1v1’s need work.
 
There's nothing wrong with saying that the world's best center-forward is scrutinized, studied, and analyzed every weekend by opponents, defenses, and goalkeepers to stop him. He's improved in many areas, such as his heading, his movement in the box, his connection with his teammates, and he can still improve by varying his shots one-on-one with the goalkeeper. He usually shoots low to the far post. A week ago, Pickford collapsed as soon as he saw Erling open his foot, and yesterday, Martinez also dived in the right place. He needs to diversify his game, curling high from time to time and closing in at the last moment to shoot powerfully at the near post. The same goes for penalties; nothing too serious so far.

Szoboszlai will also have his penalties saved one day, as he always takes them to the right of the goalkeeper.

 

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There's nothing wrong with saying that the world's best center-forward is scrutinized, studied, and analyzed every weekend by opponents, defenses, and goalkeepers to stop him. He's improved in many areas, such as his heading, his movement in the box, his connection with his teammates, and he can still improve by varying his shots one-on-one with the goalkeeper. He usually shoots low to the far post. A week ago, Pickford collapsed as soon as he saw Erling open his foot, and yesterday, Martinez also dived in the right place. He needs to diversify his game, curling high from time to time and closing in at the last moment to shoot powerfully at the near post. The same goes for penalties; nothing too serious so far.

Szoboszlai will also have his penalties saved one day, as he always takes them to the right of the goalkeeper.



Excellent scouting

he needs more shoots like that one back in 2022/23 season against Palace at home.
When Gundogan made through pass to him and he just kick that with a power. 1 on 1 situation, goalkeeper didn't stood a chance
 
There's nothing wrong with saying that the world's best center-forward is scrutinized, studied, and analyzed every weekend by opponents, defenses, and goalkeepers to stop him. He's improved in many areas, such as his heading, his movement in the box, his connection with his teammates, and he can still improve by varying his shots one-on-one with the goalkeeper. He usually shoots low to the far post. A week ago, Pickford collapsed as soon as he saw Erling open his foot, and yesterday, Martinez also dived in the right place. He needs to diversify his game, curling high from time to time and closing in at the last moment to shoot powerfully at the near post. The same goes for penalties; nothing too serious so far.

Szoboszlai will also have his penalties saved one day, as he always takes them to the right of the goalkeeper.


Kun had a much wider finishing variety than Haaland does. In positions Haaland has been 1on1 with the keeper recently, Kun could drill it high in the near corner, go across the keeper low, curl it high in the far top corner, chip the keeper or smash it in off the bar…

Haaland is obviously more dominant in finding space to receive the ball in better goalscoring places than Kun ever was, but he could improve a lot on his variety of finishes to make him an even more lethal goal scorer than he even is now.

The good thing is, he’s always saying this himself.

2023



2024



2025

 
His love for City will never diminish.

But he won’t stay at City for 10 more years if City aren’t seriously challenging for the PL title, the CL, and other trophies.

Real Madrid and Barcelona will always be at the back of his mind and an ever increasing and tempting option.

Not that Barcelona can afford him.

Thing is, unless there's a release clause, he can 'want' to go as much as he pleases. His value is too big - both commercially and ability wise - that we'd price out most moves. Mbappe was the same which is why he had to run his contract down at PSG to get his move. But I don't think he'll ever push for a move nor do I think he'll ever want to. Signing a new deal for 10 years essentially showed his commitment to the club and negates any thinking that he can run his contract down to leave.

A player whose career was so meticulously planned before he came here then suddenly signs a long-term deal tying himself into the club for 10 years. It's like the career planning was always with the end goal of being here and now he is, the decision and plan is to stay.

The club is too well ran to not compete for trophies now. Same way the Dippers will for years to come - now. And Arsenal now. Rags were always a shit show and it unravelled when that bloke left.

I'd put us in the realm of Barcelona and Madrid (even though Barca are ran terribly!) in the sense of being too well-ran (from a squad planning perspective and now being able to attract the best players/coaches) to drop off a cliff in the way the rags did and the dippers.

They went from Ferguson to Moyes! Dippers had Hodgson at the helm etc etc.

Plus, fortunately, unless the release clause was £1, Barca would be fucked in trying to get him anyway!!
 


Over the time he will drop to the Kun's level or below , but for now its impressive


Why will he?

His goals per games or minutes is far better than Aguero in the PL, CL, international etc..

He's quite simply a better goalscorer than Aguero ever was
 
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Posted in the media thread as well, but ESPN ranked Haaland as the top PL player of the season so far. Their commentary:

By scoring zero non-penalty goals through the first nine games of this season, I'm closer to second place on the Premier League goal-scoring charts than the player in second is to Haaland in first. He has turned the Premier League into the Austrian Bundesliga.

 
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List of iconic retired strikers that Haaland has already overtaken in terms of career goals. Just the 12 Ballon d'Ors between them.

347 - Erling Haaland
343 - Alessandro Del Piero
335 - Hristo Stoichkov
333 - Denis Law
333 - Ian Wright
331 - Gary Lineker
329 - Miroslav Klose
329 - Dimitar Berbatov
325 - Oleg Blokhin
324 - Jürgen Klinsmann
322 - Luca Toni
322 - Robin van Persie
321 - Carlos Tevez
318 - Roberto Baggio
316 - Francesco Totti
313 - Filippo Inzaghi
311 - Antonio Di Natale
310 - Diego Forlán
307 - Marco van Basten
307 - David Trezeguet
307 - Hernán Crespo
301 - Dennis Bergkamp
301 - Fernando Torres
299 - John Charles
294 - Nat Lofthouse
294 - Trevor Francis
290 - Andy Cole
286 - Davor Šuker
285 - Marcelo Salas
275 - Gianluca Vialli
266 - Robbie Fowler
265 - Emiliano Butragueño
262 - Michael Owen
259 - Christian Vieri
258 - Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink
248 - Gigi Riva
246 - Patrick Kluivert
240 - Mark Hughes
236 - Darko Pančev
224 - Nicolas Anelka
211 - George Weah
210 - Diego Costa
206 - Georgi Asparuhov
204 - Francis Lee
203 - Predrag Mijatović
185 - Eric Cantona
154 - Paolo Rossi
140 - Igor Belanov
137 - Zbigniew Boniek

He's *checks notes* 25 years old.
 
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