It was like watching lukaku in that moment , he looked awkward running at VVD
Nordic Ghost Yeti | Haaland at City
- Thread starter Samid
- Start date
Mbappe Kane Salah.
He’s just not a big game player (yet). Games like today are worth remembering when people think Haaland deserves a Ballon d’Or over Mbappé or Messi.
Invisible. Kane would have done a better job, although he's a better centre forward in general.
The only reason people think he should be a Ballon d'Or candidate is because Ronaldo succesfully managed to make it a scoring contest for so many years.
If he got it last year over Rodri or De Bruyne, even Gundogan it would have been very undeserved, and then I haven't even players from other teams that might have deserved it
He is an out and out goalscorer. The Golden Boot and goalscoring records is what he should be aiming for. Ballon d'Or is not for him
I always said De Bruyne should have been the one in the final 3 last time. Haaland’s tally is unreal, you can’t take away from him how impressive it is. But guys like De Bruyne performed better, did better in the bigger games, and they’re just far more important to City.
City have won leagues and gotten to CL finals without Haaland, and if we’re honest Haaland wasn’t the difference when they actually won it because he really never got going in the final. I get that KDB went off too, but he had so many huge performances throughout the season, like Madrid in the semi’s.
Vini better than all of them.
I like Vini and would have him here in a flash but I'm taking Mbappe over him
Still got the shot off. Granted it was a poor shot, but it wasn’t because VVD forced him into a terrible angle. It could have been a lot more dangerous.
No chance.
That's nice, are you proud?
No he's not. Better than Kane maybe or has potential to be. Never will be better than Mbappe.
Haaland went missing again yesterday and managed only 1 touch in the Liverpool box, he always seems to go missing in the big matches.
How is he going to impose himself? He's completely reliant on what his team mates can serve up. More so than any other striker I can recall. Inzaghi had more tricks in the bag than Haaland does.
Hard to imagine him dominating in a WC final like both Messi and Mbappe did. Or any final for that matter.
This is why I dont believe he was a Pep signing and was signed by someone above Pep's head (probably to stop their rivals getting him), Pep would never sign a player who is so limited in what he can do off the ball and is heavilly reliant on his teammates.
Pep signs goalkeepers with better overall play than Haaland.
I've only really been watching him in the big games this season. I completely ignored City last year. So, for a player who's regarded by many as the best forward in the world, or one of, its truly amazing to see his limitations be so apparent.
I mean , he literally has no effect on the game outside the area and is so heavily reliant on his teammates.
I mean , he literally has no effect on the game outside the area and is so heavily reliant on his teammates.
In matches where City don't dominate or isn't able to create, he will go missing or put away the one chance he gets. That is his profile and comes with his workdescription. He is a #9, not a SS, false 9, #10 or a hybrid. In matches like the one yesterday his job is to occupy defenders and be on his toes the one or two chances he gets. Without crosses into the box or balls in behind there little to do for any striker. In close matches like that, strikers very rarely plays the main part. In matches where defenses leave space or where City is dominant he will allways be devestating. Yesterday Liverpool was the better team and shut down City's midfield quite efficiently. He did set up his teammates a few times though.
Compare him to Nunez yesterday for instance:
Touches:
Nunez 24 vs. Haaland 22
Passing accuracy:
Nunez 67% vs. Haaland 80%
Chances created:
Nunez 0 vs. Haaland 3
Shots:
Nunez 2 vs. Haaland 1
Offsides:
Nunez 5 vs. Haaland 0
Add to the fact that Liverpool created more and pinned City down at times. Liverpool had 6 accurate crosses into the box vs. Citys 2 (one of them the corner that they scored from)
If you want to point your finger at someone who went missing in that City team yesterday, it was Alvarez. He gave away the ball in dangerous positions and he created nothing from his LW position.
Even as 9, his contribution other than goals is fairly limited.
Vini is basically Saka without the defensive contributions, or Doku with much worse dribbling skills but better end product.
+ this:
- Consistantly underperforming his xG (except the 21/22 season)
- Dribbles a lot with poor successrate (37%) (worse than all the others mentioned here including Haaland)
- End product: Vini has 147 goals+assists in his 252 games for Real Madrid (which half of the typical Haaland/Mbappe ratio) - Often goes missing in the big games (Scored a winner in the CL final against Liverpool) and has a horrible record against Atletico (1 goal in 13 games) and a bad record against Barca (6 goals in 16 games)
He's showing flaws and weaknesses it was generally agreed he was beyond as an ATG finisher. Seems he still has a fair amount to learn when it comes to the biggest games against the best opponents.
I feel he gets a lot of flack in here from people who simply wish for him to fail, which, given he's a rival's star scorer, makes sense, but in objective terms, he isn't really fairly assessed.
The season is still young in terms of decisive games, so it will be interesting to see how things pan out for him.
I feel he gets a lot of flack in here from people who simply wish for him to fail, which, given he's a rival's star scorer, makes sense, but in objective terms, he isn't really fairly assessed.
The season is still young in terms of decisive games, so it will be interesting to see how things pan out for him.
I also think there’s an element of rewriting history when making comparisons to previous world class players too. We tend to forget all the times a gamely world class goal scorer had a poor game and hardly touched the ball. But it’s happened to all of them.
There's an aspect of that, which also ties into his young age and not really having an extensive body of work to scrutinise. But he was supposed to be beyond the basic scrutiny of that kind of thing, being compared straight to ATG's and not just world class players. It's not a particularly big deal, but maybe expectations dial back a bit for a while or at least until he looks like a player who can shatter perception once more. At the moment, he certainly shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath of the striking gods, at least.
Vini is miles better than Haaland in any area other than tap-in finishing, and it's not even close.. He single-handedly saved Real so many times this season & previous seasons, and he's not a tap-in merchant that struggles to shine even with tap-ins. Vini doesn't even have to score to have a great game unlike Haaland.
And no, there's no top forward/striker in the football world that goes missing as frequently as Haaland with that "end product", 10 touches per game and obviously terrible ratings in big games.
Last edited:
Not sure if this is a wind-up or legitimate the hottest take I’ve seen here. Either way; just not the thread for it. If someone wants to make a thread comparing the three, I’d be more than happy to discuss.
They may still win with him but he's outright useless against any decent opposition.
I suppose he makes up for it by steamrolling others.
I suppose he makes up for it by steamrolling others.
Goes missing by tactics. He isn't supposed to be involved in link up or build up play. For those who have seen interviews, it's very clear that you don't go outside pep tactics, if he wants you to stay upfront and tie up a centre forward you do so. And he did
Like seriously
Of all criticism of Vini, not being a big game player is a straight up lie. He always turns up against the big clubs and singlehandedly led us to victories multiple times.This is tactics in the same way that asking Kyle Walker not to dribble through the middle is tactics.
If he were any good at it, he'd probably be asked to do it.
Last edited:
Which begs the question if Haaland makes City better or worse.
All I know is City never had any problems scoring goals or smashing teams 5-0 before he came. And they did so using a more fluid build up play with tons of different goalscorers.
Yeah, they would have been better off keeping Gabriel Jesus
Eder, fantastic big game player
Now, can we define what big games are, for the record, and how many goals you need to score in them to be called a big game player?
They won the treble with Haaland scoring 52 goals in 53 games. People are talking like he hasn’t been a success for City?
Haaland is overrated by some, underrated by others. Those who compare him to someone like prime R9 because of his numbers are definitely overrating him. He lacks the allround play of someone like R9. Those who say he is not good enough because he only scores tap ins are clearly underrating him. His job is to score goals and he does that job very very well.
The truth is that is he is the best pure goalscorer around right now and potentially a historic one. Based purely on that he is one of the best players around but not the outright best due to glaring deficiencies in his game.
The truth is that is he is the best pure goalscorer around right now and potentially a historic one. Based purely on that he is one of the best players around but not the outright best due to glaring deficiencies in his game.
Haaland has had many great games, that he happened to also score in(because he scores more often than not)
Three examples from the top of my head: The home games vs United, Arsenal, and Bayern last season were pretty good, with 5 assists, and all of those games had one VERY good assist( chip to Bernardo when everyone is excepting a shot, taking down the long ball with an Arsenal backpack on while turning, and perfectly timed Foden pass vs united)
The only time I saw him play in the Bundesliga he made 3 assists vs the Europa League-winning Frankfurt side. So he can(on his day) do a lot of damage without scoring.
Last edited:
Yeah, people pretending all he does is score tap-ins are seriously underselling him. He’s also scored some really acrobatic goals that you wouldn’t back most players to make.
More often than not when he doesn't score, he is a ghost with 6/10 ratings. Not only that, sometimes, when he scores a tap-in, he is still a ghost, see his game against United. The guy is a disaster all around play-wise finishing games with 10 touches.
Assists do not mean much without context for a striker. Lukaku had more assists in 2020/21 than Iniesta, Xavi, Modric, Kroos, Zidane, Scholes most seasons, and more than Haaland had in any season.
Yet they win the CL in Haalands first season.