Haaland at City

adexkola said:
He wasn't
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If he means overall player includes his general all around okay, including hold up and link up play, alongside touch and technique than Drogba is far better.

However Haaland is so freakishly good at scoring goals that he doesn't need to do the other stuff.
 
PSV said:
Not that far behind in goals/assists per minute on field outside of penalties and decisive in more finals than not, he's a fecking chandelier compared to the others.
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He miles behind in goals/assist per minute
 
Shane88 said:
Who scored says he has no goals in his last 9 cup finals, 8 for City. They're including Community Shields for this so a tad inflated but still a poor record.
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Salah has a terrible record in finals for Liverpool as well, it seems these players struggle with the pressure
 
RedRocket9908 said:
Salah has a terrible record in finals for Liverpool as well, it seems these players struggle with the pressure
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Yes but it is very different, if Haaland doesn't score hes basically adding nothing to the team, Salah can still be the best player without scoring or assisting.
 
Maluco said:
What Henry, Salah and Drogba all did was be crucial to their respective sides winning football matches.

There is obviously no way to know this, but the fact that City don’t score any more goals than they did pre-Haaland, the fact that he has never scored in a semi final, 0 in 7 for finals with City, and that he often gets bullied in big games?

All of that suggests that he isn’t integral to them winning football matches. You would want more than that for 1 million a week.
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He scored over 50 goals in the season that they won the Treble and was easily top scorer in both the league and champions league. How is that not integral?

He's having a poor run of form in the last few months, but this is just a rewriting of history.
 
brozonis said:
He scored over 50 goals in the season that they won the Treble and was easily top scorer in both the league and champions league. How is that not integral?

He's having a poor run of form in the last few months, but this is just a rewriting of history.
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Because they would have scored the same number of goals anyway. When it matters, he doesn’t show up. All they have done is concentrated the goals against Everton, Wolves, Fulham etc… in one place.

He isn’t a difference maker, and I don’t think he has the mentality to be one. His posture in big games shows that and there is now a stack of evidence.
 
Most decent striker playing for City in the last few seasons would have posted big numbers given how good they were. I wonder how City feel about the 10 year contract on a million per week at this point.
 
Meh, i think it’s a natural result of him being out injured and City adjusting to playing without him, takes time to swap mentality and go for the early passes in behind and looking to cross early. Yesterday they had plenty of opportunity to cross it, but there’s 2-3 dummys before they finally put in a cross and it makes it difficult to time the run. Doesn’t help that De Bruyne is a few levels below his usual standard and isn’t pinging the ball on a plate for Haaland to hammer it in.

I’d still say they ended up with the wrong striker for the type of football they want to play, and that Kane would’ve made them an overall better team, but i don’t really doubt that they’ll fine tune it for next season and unless he picks up another injury they’ll get back to exploiting his goalscoring ability.
 
dubplate warrior said:
If he means overall player includes his general all around okay, including hold up and link up play, alongside touch and technique than Drogba is far better.

However Haaland is so freakishly good at scoring goals that he doesn't need to do the other stuff.
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Inclusive of everything he wasn't.

B20 said:
Salah is usually gassed at the end of the season.
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Ah, good excuse
 
Keane going all 'General Zod' on him (the son of my enemy, etc.), and saying that he (at times) resembles a League 2 player, is going to stick.
 
FortunaUtd said:
I wonder if his mindset is right to have a sustained career at the top. Getting Magnus Carlsen vibes off him, too arrogant to keep competing in the face of adversity.
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This is probably the wildest take in this thread. Magnus Carlsen, as much of a Saudi loving arrogant cnut as he is, has no peers when it comes to chess. The guy is what, 5 times classical World Champions and before declining to defend his classical title, the unified holder of all 3 formats, as well as having reached the highest elo in history.

Talent wise, Haaland isn’t even top 50 in history, so he will never be in position to stop competing because the competition is too easy.
 
InfiniteBoredom said:
This is probably the wildest take in this thread. Magnus Carlsen, as much of a Saudi loving arrogant cnut as he is, has no peers when it comes to chess. The guy is what, 5 times classical World Champions and before declining to defend his classical title, the unified holder of all 3 formats, as well as having reached the highest elo in history.

Talent wise, Haaland isn’t even top 50 in history, so he will never be in position to stop competing because the competition is too easy.
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Yeah the Magnus comparison is way off, he's so ahead of his peers, he hasn't played much classical chess since giving the WC up and he could still walk back into it and blow the competition away. He's also the GOAT chess player.
 
Hammondo said:
Yes but it is very different, if Haaland doesn't score hes basically adding nothing to the team, Salah can still be the best player without scoring or assisting.
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however, Salah has not been the best player at all in any of those finals, he has gone missing in them just the same
 
Dave Fishwick said:
however, Salah has not been the best player at all in any of those finals, he has gone missing in them just the same
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That is fair, hes not been great in any I can remember. Though against real madrid he was looking very dangerous before they injured him (and I still believe on purpose).
 
Seems like PL sides have adapted to cancel him out.

Sit deep. Don't leave space in behind. Double up on him for crosses into the box.

He doesn't have any tricks to get past people, so he always has to lay it off when the ball is played up to him.

I think to be considered a great striker in modern football, you need to be able to take people on, drop the shoulder, front someone up and play it through their legs. Haaland doesn't do this, he has to be played in with just the keeper to beat.

This really limits your options when the opposition sit back and he has nowhere to run into.

Think it may be time for him to head off to Spain now.
 
Pascal Quiff said:
Worked for Zlatan, Zidane, Bergkamp....I'd say that it plays a part
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Explains why 2 of the names you've listed are vastly overrated, the beauty of their game distracts from their actual impact

Hammondo said:
Well he was being dangerous then...
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I have a developing theory about how Mbappe and Haaland type players are seen relative to their actual quality, and posts like yours help, so thank you
 
adexkola said:
Explains why 2 of the names you've listed are vastly overrated, the beauty of their game distracts from their actual impact



I have a developing theory about how Mbappe and Haaland type players are seen relative to their actual quality, and posts like yours help, so thank you
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Are Haaland and Mbappé supposed to be the same type of players?
 
Its hard to criticise Haaland much, he's a goalscorer and does it well. He always will I suspect and theres a lot to be said for having a striker who almost guarantees 30 goals a season. There may be a discussion about whether a team might be stronger overall with a certain type of forward instead, somebody who offers more, but as we know all too well, having a player who puts the ball in the back of the net is a pretty reliable starting point to build the other 10 around too. How much better would we be with Haaland, even if he is limited in many ways? I think we'd be better. He scores goals and I shudder at some of the chances weve missed this season..

Separately his scoring for City is trending down, from 52 in season 1, to 38 in season 2, and 30 this season. He has scored 57% of the goals this season as season one. The trend sticks even when factoring in games played. I expect that season 1 is an outlier and Haaland will be a consistent 30-40 goals all comps player, which is a rare thing. For balance, some of the talk in his first season was ridiculous really and we had him being compared to all time league greats before Christmas of that year.
 
Wheato said:
Seems like PL sides have adapted to cancel him out.

Sit deep. Don't leave space in behind. Double up on him for crosses into the box.

He doesn't have any tricks to get past people, so he always has to lay it off when the ball is played up to him.

I think to be considered a great striker in modern football, you need to be able to take people on, drop the shoulder, front someone up and play it through their legs. Haaland doesn't do this, he has to be played in with just the keeper to beat.

This really limits your options when the opposition sit back and he has nowhere to run into.

Think it may be time for him to head off to Spain now.
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I think a lot of that is on the rest of the team being poor this season. If people are doubling up on Haaland, then there should be more space for everyone else. The midfielders and wide players should be taking advantage of this to get double figures; at which point teams would have to re-evalutate their strategy. But Savinho has scored just 2 in 44 games; Gundogan 2 in 48; Grealish 3 in 30; Silva 4 in 47; De Bruyne 6 in 37. Even Foden only has 10 in 44 appearences. Basically if you dedicate most of your resources to stopping Haaland, then you have a decent chance of stopping City right now because no one else is scoring much.
 
Haaland now has 48 goals in 45 games for Norway, pretty insane record even within the more juiced numbers for international football. Should be heading for his first World Cup too you'd think.
 
KeanoMagicHat said:
Haaland now has 48 goals in 45 games for Norway, pretty insane record even within the more juiced numbers for international football. Should be heading for his first World Cup too you'd think.
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Yeah. I was just thinking how fun he'd be to watch if he didn't play for a side like City. If he played for a team like Newcastle or Forest, a more underdog team even United.
 
Brazilian_Ronaldo_9 said:
Don’t see anything wrong with it, he’s not American.
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Exactly. You can find issues on every day in the calendar. Shouldn't have posted it for example on the 10th of September as people could see it as a reference to Wolfgang von Trips' F1 car getting airborne and killing a bunch of spectators (and himself) in 1961 (yes I had to look that up, but the fact that literally on the first try I could find something on another day proves my point).
 
stefan92 said:
Exactly. You can find issues on every day in the calendar. Shouldn't have posted it for example on the 10th of September as people could see it as a reference to Wolfgang von Trips' F1 car getting airborne and killing a bunch of spectators (and himself) in 1961 (yes I had to look that up, but the fact that literally on the first try I could find something on another day proves my point).
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what a ridiculous example
 
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