Again, big games, regularly, not playing well. All massive and important points.
Being physical and using your size to create space and opportunity is a vital part of being a number 9. For his size, he doesn’t use it effectively enough. It’s not nonsense. It’s part of the game as an effective 9. He isn’t good enough to play like Messi or any sort of hybrid. He is a 9.
You can’t be serious ?
Using your size isn't elbowing someone in the face. Anyone can elbow someone in the face and they will be lucky to avoid red. And there are countless examples of Haaland using his strength to score goals in a legitimate way.
Kane is a far better number 9 for more teams than Haaland. I don’t see how that’s up for debate. Pep wanted him too.
Never fails to amaze the knee jerk reactions ….by Haaland‘s standards he’s definitely having a quiet time at the moment (it happens to all players) yet in 33 PL and CL appearances combined he’s still scored 25 goals.
And Kane has 39 goals in 38 games this season, but that’s hardly the point is it.
Read my post again I’ve already said “Kane is undoubtedly the more complete footballer”
Even that's impossible!
You need to bring De Bruyne, Silva, Foden, Rodri to United as well to feed Haaland.
For Aguero I'm referring to the Premier league mainly. Agreed that he did not do much for in the ucl and for Argentina. In his defence, the City team he played for in his prime was nowhere near this City side.
Big time bottler? He scored the biggest goal of their history in the dying seconds to win his team the league. He would score against United, Liverpool and Chelsea fairly often. Even if he wasn’t scoring he was still capable of contributing because he could run with the ball and link play. I thought he was quite poor for Argentina right enough.
Being a great goalscorer automatically makes you a great player. His all around game suddenly matters this season because he's having a poor season. It hadn't actually mattered before outside very few isolated games, and sure, absolutely improving his general play is something he should try to do and would make him a better player. But he doesn't need it to become a better player. This guys averaged a 1:1 goals to game ratio before this season. That isn't just a great player, that is performing at an all time great level
Madrid, and most of the criticism is either way overboard, or entirely nonsense
Bad wording. CL bottler. He was also rarely effective with Argentina, but then he was also always injured
He's had more than his share of stinkers actually. Spurs 2019, Liverpool 2018, Madrid 2016, Monaco 2017, etc, etc...
There is now because of this season. Which isn't over yet
He might not have had great games but he wasn’t standing about like a very expensive lump of wood which was my point. Also have to say I don’t remember Agüero being terrible in all of those either.
Last season he scored a bunch in the run in to win the league, including their key win at the emirates, and was huge for them to beat Bayern. We're talking about 5 games he didn't impact vs 10 or so which he did? I mean, that is the kind of criticism that could have been levied against Cristiano Ronaldo, or even Messi, in some seasons
It’s not a knee jerk reaction. Kane is the better number 9 and any top side looking at just the next two seasons would take him over Haaland.
If your goalscoring is winning your team games, yes. If you're ghosting in big games, no.
I can agree this, although the first paragraph could be debatable. Kane is the better No9 but would a top side take him over Haaland?
Not true, his goals dried up towards the end of the league season and players like Gundogan stepped in to fill the void. He did score against Bayern but that was the QF, he didn't score in the semis or the final of the CL. Also didn't score in the FA Cup final. What does this mean? Maybe not that much, he could turn around and score in all those critical games this season. He's a young player so any narrative about him is necessarily going to be in flux. But re last season, what you said is not correct.
Do you consider all the players involved in City creation all time greats? Because Haaland can't score if the team doesn't create a great chance for him(how many goals did this guy scored from outside the box or beating a defender for City?), so if he's an all time great for pushing the ball to the net, the players involved in the creation should be too. Not only that, the same players(well not exactly in this season, but I'm sure you'll get the point) were able to produce as much goals even without Haaland to finish what they produced, so it's not like they need him that much to score a lot.
He wasn't ghosting in big games before this season though. Unless you arbitrarily decide to count 5 games as the only big games he played, a metric by which you could make the same claim against Messi
De Bruyne is an all time great, yeah. Rodri might get there, the rest is world class players coached by probably the best manager ever. At the very least the best at coaching offence. And there's no such thing as a team creating loads of great chances without great strikers making them possible, either. Strikers can't just stand around waiting for the ball to fall to them
Like City in the period between Aguero and Haaland?
From the emirates game to the end of the season City played 16 games, he playef in 14, and scored in 9. If you add assists, that's 11 out of 14 games with a direct goal involvement. He didn't play in the last game of the season.
Foden, De Bruyne, Mahrez, Gabriel Jesus, etc were chopped liver? Were they just scoring 30 yards screamers or dribbling 5 defenders at a time? Or were they making good striker runs, getting into good positions and opening up defences off the ball?
So what is the advantage of having a guy doing exclusively that?
In the case of City it allowed them to improve the defence without sacrificing the attack, particularly in big games. Guardiola playing 4 actual defenders with Haaland isn't a coincidence
Proofs?
Look at their lineups in all the CL games down the stretch last season? And how those games went?
Both methods have advantages and disadvantages
In that two games against Madrid, Haaland was invisible, they scored four despite him, then what difference would make using that same formation, regarding defenders, but with other AM/SS, just like before, in Haaland place?
Again, Pep must be the greatest manager ever the way he destroyed Madrid at home, with Haaland being "invisible". It's like when your older brother gifted you 3 goals on FIFA and still beat you 4-3
He might be going through a rough patch, but it's also more than just that. His skillset is extremely good in some aspects, and quite average in others, so it's inevitable that he will look ineffective against certain types of opposition and in certain types of games.
Haaland was very much not invisible against Real Madrid in the Champions League last season. You could say he didn't play well, but definitely not invisible. Courtois made various saves against him. He was involved as much as anyone and a constant menace. But couldn't score. It was more of a Darwin Nunez performance than his clinical best.
