Nordic Ghost Yeti (Scandi Carroll) | Haaland at City

What we know:

The numbers are phenomenal. Insane. For every team, not just City

What we don't yet know:

Is he clutch? A big game player? Or just a bully who piles on when the going gets good? A lot of his goals have come at home. He's come up empty in some tough matches this season. The jury is still out on that one. If he helps them win the CL, that will go a long way towards dispelling any doubt.
 
I disagree that Haaland can’t create for himself. He just doesn’t need to in this side or for what Pep wants from him.
 
ti vu said:
It is. Just an example.



Nowadays with stud up challenge condemnation and especially afterVAR being implemented, defenders had less tools to work with.

Football used to be tougher. If you do fancy footwork, expect to get kicked. Attacking the space, and you likely end up getting seriously hurt. When watching older games, you may notice that defenders are much more aggressive, and ready trigger to put in an "accident challenge". Just a dark art of bodychecking. Soreing up attackers. Players also forced/tried to play through injuries a lot. Barely anyone were really 100% healthy. Shorter career/peak for attackers/players at the receiving end.



The derby matches everywhere used to be games, where two teams kick the shit out of each other, and ref would be much tolerable, or both teams would have been halved with nowadays red card worthy foul.
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Reminded me of this, Materazzi used to get away with a lot to put it mildly.


 
SilentWitness said:
I disagree that Haaland can’t create for himself. He just doesn’t need to in this side or for what Pep wants from him.
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Well he does, as he’s failed to score a non penalty goal in 12 games this season, often due to his teammates ignoring him.
A few of these games have cost City a lead in the title race.
If he wants to go up another level, he has to start creating his own goals also when his team aren’t providing him.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
Well he does, as he’s failed to score a non penalty goal in 12 games this season, often due to his teammates ignoring him.
A few of these games have cost City a lead in the title race.
If he wants to go up another level, he has to start creating his own goals also when his team aren’t providing him.
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Remember when SAF told everyone in the team to find and feed RVP because he would win them the league? The same applies to Haaland. Pep likes his team to be structured and work for the team, not for themselves. He’s famously been annoyed at players who have assisted or scored because they’ve done stuff that went against the grain of his philosophy etc. It is quite clear in this City side what the role of Haaland is and it is up to the other players to assist in that.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
Well he does, as he’s failed to score a non penalty goal in 12 games this season, often due to his teammates ignoring him.
A few of these games have cost City a lead in the title race.
If he wants to go up another level, he has to start creating his own goals also when his team aren’t providing him.
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Come on dude, this is nonsense.
 
Andrade said:
The post of someone who never saw Ronaldo play.
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What are you talking about? The guy said haaland could replicate ronaldo's success had he played on his team. I took this to mean trophies won, and its not exactly a high bar to clear, he wasn't particularly successful, trophy wise, over his career, at club level
 
Zehner said:
You're wrong and obviously haven't seen him play.
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I'm mid 30s. Saw him play plenty. Nostalgia playing tricks again as it always does. We often look back on players like they were perfect but truth is I would say Thierry Henry was a play maker forward, Ronaldo Nazario Di Lima was simply not. He was one track minded on getting to the goal as quickly as possible with his skill and directness
 
Mike Smalling said:
Ronaldo could create something out of nothing through his dribbling and skill - either for himself or for his teammates. Haaland cannot. Haaland's skillset may be better for some teams, while Ronaldo's is better for others, but you cannot convince me that they are equally creative, because they might end up scoring the same amount of goals.
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Ronaldo hardly created shit for his teammates. Had about same number of assists in Europe's top 5 leagues as RVN who was more of a poacher. I never said they were even equally creative you are missing my argument. I said Haaland would have the same success
 
Ronaldo(R9) was creative in the sense he was greater at creating his own goals out of nothing, not in terms of being playmaker or assist king.
 
Stacks said:
Ronaldo hardly created shit. Had about same number of assists in Europe's top 5 leagues as RVN who was more of a poacher. I never said they were even equally creative you are missing my argument. I said Haaland would have the same success
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I think we have very different definitions of "creating" then. For me it's much more than assists.

But I definitely would not rule out Haaland having the same level of success as Ronaldo in terms of goals and club trophies won. I doubt he gets a World Cup coming from a small footballing nation, but that is hardly his fault.
 
Wing Attack Plan R said:
Did Haaland use HGH or anabolic steroids? His facial features look like he roided out. Not even sure if that stuff is banned anymore? He seems to have had quite the prodigious growth spurt to get up to 6’5” when his dad was only 6’1”.
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My Dad is 5' 11", I'm, 6' 2" and I have 3 brothers who are 6' 6", 6' 3" and 6' 5" respectively so heigt differential is pretty normal
 
Stacks said:
I'm mid 30s. Saw him play plenty. Nostalgia playing tricks again as it always does. We often look back on players like they were perfect but truth is I would say Thierry Henry was a play maker forward, Ronaldo Nazario Di Lima was simply not. He was one track minded on getting to the goal as quickly as possible with his skill and directness
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Ronaldo may not be as heavy play maker like Henry, but he's a playmaker no doubt. One track minded term would prove you that either had a bad memory or you didn't watch enough football when you said what you said.
 
ti vu said:


Ronaldo may not be as heavy play maker like Henry, but he's a playmaker no doubt. One track minded term would prove you that either had a bad memory or you didn't watch enough football when you said what you said.
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I highly doubt R9 would even agree with your assessment himself. R9 was a phenomenal striker. His power, strength, explosiveness, pace, shooting (with two foot), dribbling were his strong attributes. Playmaking however was not. If you consider he used his dribbling ability and his explosiveness to go past the entire defense as "play making" then so be it.
 
Was R9 more pleasing on the eye? Yes, sure. But the efficiency of Haaland is nothing short of astonishing. I don't think he will win the ballon d'or this year, just because of Messi won the WC, and the rest doesn't really matter apparently, but he will win it eventually, and continue smashing records until he gets it. How many records did he take yesterday? 2-3? It's getting silly.

He's not a R9 taking on half a team to score a goal. He will just bulldoze goal after goal with immaculate positioning, speed and raw strength.
 
Zehner said:
It's not madness. Dortmund didn't become better and City didnt become better. It might have other reasons and maybe the teams would have been 'even worse' without his arrival due to other developments but so far it is a fact that he didn't improve their performance levels.

And Benzema and Lewandowski are technically extremely good and contribute much more than Haaland. Benzema especially won three UCL's as basically a playmaker with in comparison mediocre goal outputs.

It is important to actually play football and not only score goals in every position. This goal obsession is really annoying. There are dozens of important plays in a football game that can't be measured in goals and when you don't consider them important, you're being ignorant, simple as that.
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The only real objective in football is to win, in other words score more goals that the opposition, nothing else really matters

Ask any fan would you rather your team play fancy football and win nothing or play less exciting football and win trophies - you'll only need your fingers to count the former and a calculator for the latter
 
ThierryHenry14 said:
I highly doubt R9 would even agree with your assessment himself. R9 was a phenomenal striker. His power, strength, explosiveness, pace, shooting (with two foot), dribbling were his strong attributes. Playmaking however was not. If you consider he used his dribbling ability and his explosiveness to go past the entire defense as "play making" then so be it.
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And you're just saying it's all about dribbling. No passing, no range of passing. No composure, vision to choose the better passing option.??

Did you even try to watch the video I linked? :rolleyes:
 
Stacks said:
I mean r9 didn't exactly do much off ball. He was lazy, had his hands on his hips and did not press. He wasn't a playmaker or creator so what was his contribution measured by?
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His pure natural footballing instinct. Very few players are born with it which makes them unique. He deserves to be talked about in the same sentence as Maradona, Messi, Pele, Zidane, Ronaldinho and Pele. Haaland as good a goal scorer as he is will never be compared to any of them no matter how many goals he scores and I don't mean to take anything way from Haaland as his record speaks for itself.
 
Red in STL said:
The only real objective in football is to win, in other words score more goals that the opposition, nothing else really matters

Ask any fan would you rather your team play fancy football and win nothing or play less exciting football and win trophies - you'll only need your fingers to count the former and a calculator for the latter
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He might be a player much dependent on service, but since he's getting that service it doesnt really matter. Much agree with you.
 
Gehrman said:
He might be a player much dependent on service, but since he's getting that service it doesnt really matter. Much agree with you.
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If City really played to his strengths then he'd be really scary, against us at OT he could have scored 3-4 if they had TBH
 
ti vu said:
And you're just saying it's all about dribbling. No passing, no range of passing. No composure, vision to choose the better passing option.??

Did you even try to watch the video I linked? :rolleyes:
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Ronaldo Nazario has an official Twitter account and you should ask him directly. I watched enough R9 since his Ajax days.
 
Stacks said:
Yes so his contribution is scoring goals like Haaland.
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No a player who created goals for themselves is not the same as a player who depends on teammates to create chances
 
[QUOTE="Zehner, post: 30293532, member: 1

It is important to actually play football and not only score goals in every position. This goal obsession is really annoying. There are dozens of important plays in a football game that can't be measured in goals and when you don't consider them important, you're being ignorant, simple as that.
[/QUOTE]

Obsessing over goals being scored is an annoyance.

Christ.
 
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ti vu said:


Ronaldo may not be as heavy play maker like Henry, but he's a playmaker no doubt. One track minded term would prove you that either had a bad memory or you didn't watch enough football when you said what you said.
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Every single forward player will make assists by result of them being the closest to goal and thus will have an assist compilation. Ronaldo made 75 assists. Many seasons he ended with 4 assists. That is no play makers. Even Robbie Fowler made nearly 60 assists. Andy Cole made 88. Is Cole a playmaker?

Suarez is a playmaker, Rooney is a playmaker, Henry was, Baggio was, Neymar is. Ronaldo was not......
 
Jeffthered said:
[QUOTE="Zehner, post: 30293532, member: 1

It is important to actually play football and not only score goals in every position. This goal obsession is really annoying. There are dozens of important plays in a football game that can't be measured in goals and when you don't consider them important, you're being ignorant, simple as that.
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Obsessing over goals being scored is an annoyance.

Christ.
[/QUOTE]

I think @Zehner is just talking more about giving credit to the players who do the hard work to make sure those chances are created in the first place.
 
Cassidy said:
No a player who created goals for themselves is not the same as a player who depends on teammates to create chances
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See the thing is players like van nistelrooy and haaland do create chances for themselves with their off the ball movement, it might be less visually impressive than dribbling past multiple players but it's very much a difficult skill and there's a reason there aren't more players scoring 40 goals a season
 
jm99 said:
See the thing is players like van nistelrooy and haaland do create chances for themselves with their off the ball movement, it might be less visually impressive than dribbling past multiple players but it's very much a difficult skill and there's a reason there aren't more players scoring 40 goals a season
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they don't get it. Scholes said a midfielder is only as good as his striker. He meant his striker's movement. There is a reason Haaland scores so many damn goals in all leagues. At all levels he is a 1:1 forward. That's actually nuts.
 
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Zehner said:
It's not madness. Dortmund didn't become better and City didnt become better. It might have other reasons and maybe the teams would have been 'even worse' without his arrival due to other developments but so far it is a fact that he didn't improve their performance levels.

And Benzema and Lewandowski are technically extremely good and contribute much more than Haaland. Benzema especially won three UCL's as basically a playmaker with in comparison mediocre goal outputs.

It is important to actually play football and not only score goals in every position. This goal obsession is really annoying. There are dozens of important plays in a football game that can't be measured in goals and when you don't consider them important, you're being ignorant, simple as that.
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Scoring goals is important in football though, its how you win games. Some might say it i the most important aspect of outscoring your opponent
 
Tom Cato said:
Scoring goals is important in football though, its how you win games. Some might say it i the most important aspect of outscoring your opponent
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Straight out of Michael Owens mouth that.
 
Stacks said:
I'm mid 30s. Saw him play plenty. Nostalgia playing tricks again as it always does. We often look back on players like they were perfect but truth is I would say Thierry Henry was a play maker forward, Ronaldo Nazario Di Lima was simply not. He was one track minded on getting to the goal as quickly as possible with his skill and directness
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No offense but you clearly haven't. And how would you? I'm in my early thirties and when R9 was at his best, I was 7 or 8 years old. Even if you were 3 or 4 years older than me, there's no way you could have properly assessed what happened there.

Here's a R9 video with highlights only from the 97/98 season. 30 minutes of him dribbling and passing and creating chances by himself, at times receiving the ball with 4-5 team mates ahead of him on the pitch - in the Serie A of the 90s.




If we rank strikers based on their overall contribution, I'd go with

R9 >> Henry > Mbappe > Benzema > Lewandowski >>> Haaland.

R9 was an absolute freak, completely unplayable.
 
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