I would agree with this. Playing the likes of Ake, Akanji and Grealish doesn't help anyone. However, until a team is truly successful with Haaland in it, questions will remain I'm sure.
Nordic Ghost Yeti (Scandi Carroll) | Haaland at City
- Thread starter Samid
- Start date
I don’t think Haaland is causing City their issues, think thats just people looking for a reason to criticise him. Their current problems for me are that the majority of their side is out of form this season. Bar KDB and Haaland I don’t think any of their attackers are having a particularly good season. Bernardo has underwhelmed compared to last year, Grealish has been awful but Pep insists on playing him over Foden (who has been good this season). The lack of consistency in their backline is also a big problem which has hurt them this season. Against Brentford and Everton, City never really looked like scoring, they created very few chances which has been pretty rare over the last few seasons. Haaland is actually the one masking the issues currently for me, as they'd be struggling to score without him. His all round game is pretty underrated too, he's a decent enough passer and has a good first touch and at laying off the ball to other attackers.
So you don't think that KdB or Foden, when they used to play as false 9, had a bigger impact defensively than Haaland?
I finally figured out who he reminds me of. He’s wolf the dentist stansson from mighty ducks
That's a poor logic
Batistuta himself wasn't very successful, and his trophy cabinet isn't precisely full of trophies.
Was Bati making teams better?
We had it last year with Ronaldo. He messes up your press from the front at the very least since he has to be in the box to score a goal and doesn’t hold it up or allow players to play beyond him. Remember when Pep struggled against the counter attack in England so went heavy on over recycling the ball etc? He’s back to square one now with Haaland up top.
I also found it a bit weird that he congratulated the club for the signing as if he had nothing to do with it. Maybe I’m reading a bit too much into that one
No, he was brilliant. Won Serie A with Roma. The majority of top sides these days have centre forwards who offer more than just goals. From a technical point of view, Haaland doesn't really compare very well with many of the greats over the last 20 years.
Winning the league with the Glazers and Woodward
Ronaldo and Haaland are nothing alike off the ball. Ronaldo was incapable of pressing due to his legs being gone. Haaland is good at pressing, he contributes defensively. He was part of Salzburg and Dortmund who are two of the top pressing sides in Europe. He's obviously not an Alvarez who will run themselves in to the ground pressing, but he is capable of doing it for a high level side.
Yesterday was a big one for him, because Godfrey wound him up all game and he looked very upset. If you're a manager, you're telling your defender to do that every week from now on. Rattle the cnut.
Would love if we signed him, brillant player
But he doesn’t press that well if at all. He may run across a bit but Rodri has said he doesn’t do much outside of the box for the team and another (maybe Pep?) says he never leaves the width of the goal posts. You can’t be a monster in the box jumping on every chance if you’re pressing the full back out wide. That’s the pros and cons of having a Haaland in your side.
I made this point about three games in and got laughed at. Oh what does it matter if he’s scoring two a game which is true but what about when he’s simply scoring one per game and teams aren’t being put to bed?
should have seen a red card but fa can't having him miss 3 games
Whilst there's no doubt they've changed a bit to accomodate Haaland, is it not possible that City are just having one of their 'off' years?
They had one when Liverpool won the league, they usually have one every three years or so. I think this is just one of them, and they're still second and the highest scorers, and Haaland has scored 21 goals on his own.
There have been goals he's scored, those typical tap in types, that City usually don't score because they never had a striker that does that so he's clearly a positive contribution to the team.
Arsenal are having an exceptional year so far, it's going under the radar because the attention is on City and Haaland. They've barely dropped any points, it's in the top 6 best starts to a Premier League season ever, so it's not like City are doing horrendously badly, and certainly not because of Haaland.
They had one when Liverpool won the league, they usually have one every three years or so. I think this is just one of them, and they're still second and the highest scorers, and Haaland has scored 21 goals on his own.
There have been goals he's scored, those typical tap in types, that City usually don't score because they never had a striker that does that so he's clearly a positive contribution to the team.
Arsenal are having an exceptional year so far, it's going under the radar because the attention is on City and Haaland. They've barely dropped any points, it's in the top 6 best starts to a Premier League season ever, so it's not like City are doing horrendously badly, and certainly not because of Haaland.
Every team has to change and evolve, otherwise the rest figure out how to deal with you.
That was what happened to United, they didn't do this, teams worked out that high-pressing us lead to us giving silly possession away and all the consequences of that.
ETH is addressing that, still a way to go but we are a harder team to beat now than we were 6 months ago
City haven't been as dominant this season but Haaland still gives them the edge over most
Let me ask you: do you believe that City would be performing as they were last season with Haaland completely removed from the team?
My opinion is that they are not performing well as individuals relative to years gone by and Haaland is being scapegoated for that because it’s the easiest thing to do. We saw at the World Cup that City’s players simply aren’t doing well as individuals - star players in the league looking terrible for their countries, and unless you’re of the opinion Pep has the golden formula, there has to be acknowledgement that their players have gone off the boil somewhat, for reasons that go deeper than Haaland.
I can buy into adjustments to accommodate Haaland, but I can’t see the objective reasoning put forth to blame him - or even the accommodation of him - for the collective collapse outlined above that is happening in and outside of the City setup.
re. Transition. One might argue that a single player who can drag so many wherever he goes on the pitch is leaving the opposition discombobulated and having to be far more creative in their own transition counters to counter that - city on their game would be all over that disarrayed state; it’s not Haaland creating those cohesive ruptures for my money as it isn’t hard to build around the chaos he causes. Where I would buy it is if he’s losing the ball in dangerous positions and the space he’s not in is being directly exploited, but that’s not what’s happening.
They’d be a much better team with Kane up top had that gone through.
21 goals but reminding me so much of RVN. Kane would have scored 11-14 but have a shit tonne of assists to go with it and City would just look an all round better side for it.
So thank feck it didn’t go through.
21 goals but reminding me so much of RVN. Kane would have scored 11-14 but have a shit tonne of assists to go with it and City would just look an all round better side for it.
So thank feck it didn’t go through.
I think mainly they look more predictable as an attacking unit. It seems like the only way they really try to score most games is for KDB to set up Haaland. It's mostly an effective combo but it's also a bit simpler for the defending team because they know if they can stop that route, there's not much else. Whereas goals and breakthroughs used to come from anywhere. Obviously many teams aren't able to stop that combo and then City will run riot and score five or six. But they have struggled with breaking down a low block in more games than before.
I'm also not quite sure which players you're referring to who have gone off the boil? Cancelo hasn't been able to replicate his form for last season but KDB was probably City's most underperforming star at the World Cup – but he's been consistently very good for City this season.
You’ve essentially negated your point that changing the style of play to accommodate one player is highly damaging by using PSG as an example and listing three players. We all know that accomodating three players is a completely different beast to one.
Also, in what way can you prove that he has messed up the team balance? I’ve watched City loads, and they’re still creating a lot of chances in most games and are the highest scorers in the league. Would you be making this post if their defensive players like Cancelo, Stones etc, guys whose performances have absolutely nothing to do with Haaland, were not playing as poorly, or at least inconsistently, as they have been this season?
There's a player they lost that is a big factor - Fernandinho
Waiting for the English media and pundits to claim he is the problem like they did when Ronaldo was our top scorer. I won't hold my breathe
They have this guy Rodri
I have negated nothing as these players didn't arrive at the same time, and while I think Messi is a great addition in terms of creativity, his lack of activity makes the balance of the team weaker.
Most of City's players are totally average defensively and they only managed to be stable because they were all working as well oiled cogs. Even Pep says so , Bernardo isn't a good defender, Gundogan, Rodri, Foden etc. aren't good defenders, but they defend well as a tight unit and he doesn't have a Fernandinho anymore to cover for mistakes. They changed a cog in the machine and now it's harder for them to block transitions when they occur.
I think it's pretty obvious to anyone who watch the game that performances were affected by these changes. Either Haalands manage to dominate his box and they can score 6 goals (which they already did last season) or he doesn't and they look uninspired and struggle to score 1-2 goals against very average teams. It reduced the importance of Bernardo Silva, Foden, Cancelo etc who used to be very important players for City.
So now you might think that these players having a drop in performances has nothing to do with Haaland (well not really with Haaland but with the changes made by Pep) but I highly doubt that Bernardo, Cancelo, Foden and even some defenders randomly got worse at the same time, exactly when Haaland joined the team. What a coincidence it would be.
On the other hand, KdB is more than ever the key to City's offense, he's constantly involved and he managed to sustain a very good level, but that's probably another coincidence.
They used to be able to fire from all cylinders and crack low blocks pretty easily, now they struggle far more often against low blocks when Haaland is busy with defenders. There's no other significant goal contributions from other players and even Foden seems out of gas.
Maybe he's not as good, I don't know, Fernandinho was a sneaky sort of player, expert in breaking up counter attacks by fair means or foul and getting away with it, maybe City are getting caught more often meaning they don't commit as much going forward
Rodri is a great player but he'll never be able to do what Fernandinho did defensively, they're very very different players. Rodri is superior on the ball, Fernandinho would do anything to stop an opponent. He was great at stabilizing the team.
Rodri had a bit of a shocker yesterday, tbh.
To put things in some perspective regarding breaking records, left, right and centre:
Ruud’s first season here:
PL: 23 goals (4 penalties) and 1 assist in 32 games (2554 minutes)
0,81 goals/90 - 0,67 non penalty goals/90
CL: 10 goals (3 penalties) and 3 assists in 14 games (1212 minutes)
0,74 goals/90 - 0,52 non penalty goals/90
Haaland’s first season at City so far:
PL: 21 goals (3 penalties) and 3 assists in 15 games (1220 minutes)
1,55 goals/90 - 1,33 non penalty goals/90
CL: 5 goals in 4 games (250 minutes)
1,8 non penalty goals/90
The stuff Haaland is doing is on a totally different level
I don't know if he makes City better.....however I think CIty is burned out at this point (much like Liverpool). This is the beginning of the end imo for Pep's current City team. They need a complete revamp. People keep talking about City domination and all that but they have had 4 grueling campaigns. They won 2 Titles by only a couple points and had some brutal CL runs..... These players are burned out ...
Actually, City are just on a different level altogether than that United side.
In Haaland’s first 16 PL games his team compared with Ruud’s:
| Stat | Haaland/City | Ruud/United |
| Won | 11 | 7 |
| Lost | 2 | 6 |
| Team goals for | 44 | 36 |
| Goals against | 14 | 27 |
It’s not quite the fair comparison,
Ruud for the most part played in the worst United team’s that SAF built. Add to that Haaland plays in a side that is insanely dominant with the ball in attacking areas (United conceded double the amount of goals in that period as City) in the vast majority of games.
No question for me that if you stuck Ruud in a side as dominant as Pep’s City, he’d have had a lot more goals.
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Put Ruud in the current United team and there would be a massive difference, the man would be a goal machine as much, if not more, than Haaland!
When he scores another hatrick against us this thread will be silent again.
Ruud joined when we were transitioning from the treble side. He also deserved to win more than just one league title.
He was also back playing football for less than 3 months after missing 9 months due to ACL surgery!
This thread is full of fawning literally every time he scores, so I doubt that.
Probably all-in for the CL this season. Lack of European success is certainly a failure for this City team.
I'm not sure if that is possible? To be an astonishingly good goalscorer you need several tools up your sleeve. Shooting, finishing, heading, speed, strength, balance, positioning, timing and technique are all skills that will help you become a top goalscorer. Haaland is probably world class at all of these except for heading and technique, but he's not bad at these either. I've seen him hit some pretty good passes so he has that tool up his sleeve as well, although the nature of his role means that we get to see this skill less often.
Yes he is a bit of a specialist. Playing him as a wide forward would be a waste of his talents. But is that such a bad thing? It's useful for the manager to be able to play you in any attacking position, but someone needs to play CF anyways and if you're world class at that particular job, then I don't see the big issue. It's only an issue if you somehow find yourself with two world class CFs who are both wasted on the wing. When was the last time that happened?
Yeah he has terrific attributes when it comes to being an elite goalscorer. It's as if he was created in a lab. I agree that playing him as a wide forward would be a waste of his talents and he lacks many of the skills needed for that role anyway. However, despite being far away from Lukaku-like in terms of touch and technique, I feel that Haaland doesn't really compare to many of the truly elite strikers from the last 20 years from a technical and creative point of view. Even ignoring the likes of Messi and Ronaldo due to their insane levels and positional ambiguity, the likes of Rooney, Van Persie, Henry, Suarez, Benzema, Lewandowski, R9, Eto'o, Aguero, Kane etc were/are clearly superior all round footballers.
On the flip side you have ian Rush, he's one of the worst top flight players I ever saw skill wise, but he could score goals for fun
I was just thinking off him