Nordic Ghost Yeti (Scandi Carroll) | Haaland at City

Pogue Mahone said:
Well I’m giving examples who are both from the club I support. I’m sure supporters of different clubs could come up with examples of their own. Add all those examples up…
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I think it's relatively rare, in that most players by 22-23 are pretty much rounded and will have the technical skills they'll have for most of their career (then they'll add experience and know-how mostly), but I don't think it's that difficult in reality, but it massively depends on the player and the coach they have. Taking examples close to home for us, Rooney was a phenomenon of a player and very much geared towards the team, so he constantly added to his skillset throughout his career - Giggs was a bit of an oddity, having a longevity and understanding of his own body (and it's limitations as he got older) that enabled him to switch to something else. Rashford this year has added great heading technique to his skillset, I doubt it's a surprise it happened in the year we added competent coaching staff to the club. I think the examples are outliers, but I don't think they'd necessarily need to be, it's just that loads of players and managers are content with what they have and don't necessarily need more.

Honestly, if Haaland carries on being the goalscorer he is, and never develops the playmaking aspect of his game, he'll still be a sensational player and one of the very best in the game.
 
I don't think there's anything wrong at all with a player being a pure goalscorer who doesn't get involved much in buildup. We've been conditioned in recent years to think the best strikers must drop deep and link up play but is that really the case?

But Haaland isn't exactly that, either. Four league assists isn't bad and more goals like Grealish yesterday where he was heavily involved.
 
Wayne's World said:
Never seen a footballer score as many goals by this time of the season and be labelled as shite :lol:

He's one of the best strikers in the world, first touch could go into row Z but as long as he gets 40 a season I wouldn't give two fecks
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I have not seen anyone calling him shit.
The thing is football is not that simple. You can score 40 goals a season, be the best striker in the world and still not make your team better.
I think that's the point of this debate. Haaland needs to add more to his game(he will under Pep) and his team needs to adapt more to him.
 
Adisa said:
The thing is football is not that simple. You can score 40 goals a season, be the best striker in the world and still not make your team better.
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This is a valid point to be fair. And as you are (in my mind ) correctly saying, the onus is both on the player, and the manager (and team?) to get the best possible outcome. But i think we can safely say he has added something new to City, something that they didnt have before. So I would say he made the team better.
 
Adisa said:
I have not seen anyone calling him shit.
The thing is football is not that simple. You can score 40 goals a season, be the best striker in the world and still not make your team better.
I think that's the point of this debate. Haaland needs to add more to his game(he will under Pep) and his team needs to adapt more to him.
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Theoretically yes but this doesn’t happen as often as fans think.

ability to score goals upfront is likely the most valuable player on the pitch. It’s the one player for whom you could make tactical exceptions (along with a super talented #10)
 
Danimancer said:
This is a valid point to be fair. And as you are (in my mind ) correctly saying, the onus is both on the player, and the manager (and team?) to get the best possible outcome. But i think we can safely say he has added something new to City, something that they didnt have before. So I would say he made the team better.
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shamans said:
Theoretically yes but this doesn’t happen as often as fans think.

ability to score goals upfront is likely the most valuable player on the pitch. It’s the one player for whom you could make tactical exceptions (along with a super talented #10)
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The thing is this is a team that has never suffered a lack of goals. That singular point potentially makes this one of those rare cases.
 
Noot said:
I don't think there's anything wrong at all with a player being a pure goalscorer who doesn't get involved much in buildup. We've been conditioned in recent years to think the best strikers must drop deep and link up play but is that really the case?

But Haaland isn't exactly that, either. Four league assists isn't bad and more goals like Grealish yesterday where he was heavily involved.
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I agree with your first paragraph, particularly when he's such an amazing goalscorer. He doesn't have to be a playmaker too (which would probably come to the detriment of the goalscoring side, at least somewhat), but it's a nice tool to have in his box. But he doesn't need it.

Don't really agree with your second paragraph though. In a team as attacking minded as City, he's gonna get some assists for sure, there's a lot of other players capable of scoring. He really is a pure goalscorer.
 
Rooney in Paris said:
I agree with your first paragraph, particularly when he's such an amazing goalscorer. He doesn't have to be a playmaker too (which would probably come to the detriment of the goalscoring side, at least somewhat), but it's a nice tool to have in his box. But he doesn't need it.

Don't really agree with your second paragraph though. In a team as attacking minded as City, he's gonna get some assists for sure, there's a lot of other players capable of scoring. He really is a pure goalscorer.
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A lot of guys touted as more complete than Haaland have as many or fewer league assists. 4 is really not bad for a central striker.
 
It's definitely a transition period for them. If you look at City since Pep took over, their wide forwards/wingers have pretty much kept up or outscored their striker in terms of goals every season aside from his first at the club where Aguero outperformed everyone by some distance. They also had players like Sterling/Sane etc. whose game revolved around that. The people they play out wide now like Foden/Grealish/Bernardo aren't the same in that aspect and neither is Haaland.
 
Noot said:
A lot of guys touted as more complete than Haaland have as many or fewer league assists. 4 is really not bad for a central striker.
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The quality of the team he's playing with, and the players he lines up with, has a lot of relevance to this element. I mean if you want to argue that he's not just a pure goalscorer, you're free to do so, but anyone who watches him play knows otherwise. He's absolutely formidable at that aspect, so I have no idea why you'd feel the need to pretend he's more than that.
 
Adisa said:
The thing is this is a team that has never suffered a lack of goals. That singular point potentially makes this one of those rare cases.
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I wouldn't say never. Every season there are two or three teams who really manage to prevent them from scoring. That doesn't matter in the league, but it loses the CL.
 
Adisa said:
The thing is this is a team that has never suffered a lack of goals. That singular point potentially makes this one of those rare cases.
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He’s still a new player and the team has to adjust to his style as well. Till next season Pep will further workout how to get the best of him
 
Really struggling for confidence it seems. Should have had 2 today but for a Foden brain far and his own wild swing when he needed to keep his head.
I think the dive after out muscling the CB today instead of having the belief to power on summed up his current issue, same with the Grealish goal vs Arsenal, while it was good play and led to a good goal, a confident Haaland was no way passing that either.
 
His away form has to be addressed. It’s amazing he’s scored so many goals in basically half the games he plays in.
 
padr81 said:
Really struggling for confidence it seems. Should have had 2 today but for a Foden brain far and his own wild swing when he needed to keep his head.
I think the dive after out muscling the CB today instead of having the belief to power on summed up his current issue, same with the Grealish goal vs Arsenal, while it was good play and led to a good goal, a confident Haaland was no way passing that either.
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That's the issue with pure goal scorers, they ALL hit a rough patch occasionnally. The problem is, when a player like Haaland does, even for one game, he brings close to nothing else to the table.
 
Oly Francis said:
That's the issue with pure goal scorers, they ALL hit a rough patch occasionnally. The problem is, when a player like Haaland does, even for one game, he brings close to nothing else to the table.
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Absolutely, I wouldn't say he brings nothing because he stretches team he allows us to play our new patented 6 midfielder system. But he looks technically poor beside our other players in a system so heavy on possession, and he's really poor at that stuff. If he's not scoring he stick out like a sore thumb.
 
His general play is truly rubbish and when he misses sitters like today it makes it all the more problematic.

Can’t help but find it amusing that while everyone felt the league was finished for years after Pep signed Haaland, he’s possibly going to lose it to his former assistant manager.
 
mu4c_20le said:
Went to the wrong Manchester club.
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Keep seeing this popped up now and again, but surely with the direction we are going in, he’s not exactly fitting in seamlessly?

Rashford is our direct runner for balls in behind, and Antony likes to have a pop at goal as well, so having a Benzema type forward is much more beneficial for our system than a pure poacher.

Haaland is an outrageous goalscorer, might even be the best ever by the time he’s done, but he belongs to a breed of footballer increasingly made obsolete by the demands of modern football.
 
People criticizing him for his footballing abilities are a great example for liverpool energy
 
padr81 said:
Really struggling for confidence it seems. Should have had 2 today but for a Foden brain far and his own wild swing when he needed to keep his head.
I think the dive after out muscling the CB today instead of having the belief to power on summed up his current issue, same with the Grealish goal vs Arsenal, while it was good play and led to a good goal, a confident Haaland was no way passing that either.
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The dive was about trying to get Worrall sent off because he was on a yellow - he was waving his imaginary card at the ref Afterwards. He’s not lacking in confidence, he‘s just another cheat.
 
Amar__ said:
You do realise thread was bumped by Man City fan criticising his football abilities?
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no, but my point still stands, he's a fecking force of nature and yet people cry, I can't stand it, it's pathetic
 
Being real, this City side has shown glimpses of its former level but has been largely dysfunctional this season.

The fact Haaland has 32 goals in 31 games despite all the problems we have is testament to his ability.

People forget this is a 22 year old lad in a new country, league and team.
 
This lad is losing his mind on the pitch you can actually see it. Has he done something to offend Gundogan & co because they never pass to him?
 
BlueMoonOutcast said:
This lad is losing his mind on the pitch you can actually see it. Has he done something to offend Gundogan & co because they never pass to him?
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He looks a bit arrogant and his weirdness probably doesn't make him affable. He seems like the type to try and make you seem dumb for asking a simple question.
 
Yeah he's a great poacher but big clubs will always feel like they can do more as a team if their striker was a complete forward. Haaland outside of the box is useless, apart from making the runs in behind. It's not his game, which is fine, but the truth. City is a team who don't need a poacher. They don't need a player who will batter the small teams. They do that without him. The fact that they have fewer xG and fewer xPts than at this point last season where they played without a striker says a lot. Haaland was never a player who was going to make a difference in the league for them. City will walk the league most seasons, this season they lost some motivation so they are more inconsistent, with or without Haaland. Their league output is the same with or without Haaland though. He can score loads and break records while the team goals is just funneled instead of spread out. That's the difference.

His impact will be shown in the big games ... Yet in those games there is less room to play, so he has been struggling in some of them. We'll see how he does in the CL. But he isn't a complete striker who is also a great goalscorer like Lewandowski, Benzema, Kane. He's a poacher who is useless outside of the box. And at that point it becomes a balance of just how many goals does he need to get to outweigh what he doesn't bring. If his team is scoring more and doing better as a team than before he joined, than fair enough he's on the right side of that line given all the things he doesn't provide.


Other teams he'd fit in far more, but City is one where he doesn't really make them better.
 
Made only 11 passes and had 22 touches yesterday while his team had over 60% possession.

In comparison, Benzema against Liverpool made 31 passes, had 42 touches and Madrid had only 48% possession.
 
Idxomer said:
Made only 11 passes and had 22 touches yesterday while his team had over 60% possession.

In comparison, Benzema against Liverpool made 31 passes, had 42 touches and Madrid had only 48% possession.
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Helps that Madrid pass to Benzema.
 
BlueMoonOutcast said:
This lad is losing his mind on the pitch you can actually see it. Has he done something to offend Gundogan & co because they never pass to him?
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He's not the only one losing his mind at it. Everytime gundo sees him making a run than turns and passes to a fullback I feel a little bit more like I'm losing mine.
 
padr81 said:
He's not the only one losing his mind at it. Everytime gundo sees him making a run than turns and passes to a fullback I feel a little bit more like I'm losing mine.
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But can those players make those passes? I know we find Rashford every time but not everybody plays the long ball in behind simply because they can’t and if we spam that pass we lose all control.
He is refusing to come deep or run the channels in the exact same way his teammates aren’t finding those quick balls into him
 
I might be the only one but I didn't see him being open for a through ball and not getting it that often. Usually that would have been high risk passes and that's simply not City. Actually I thought Gündogan once or twice played more directly to him than his instinct.

Haaland needs to come short and participate more often. He's far too isolated. A striker has to do more than just score for a top team. Said it before, he didn't make Dortmund a better team and so far he hasn't improved City either.
 
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