Nordic Ghost Yeti (Scandi Carroll) | Haaland at City

Acquire Me said:
It might happen eventually, but Norway are serial bottlers.
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A friend of mine played for the Norwegian national team in the first decade of the 2000s and he has some choice words for the bottling mentality of the team back then, and now. Unsurprisingly he feels that some of the players are not very good at football
 
Tom Cato said:
Id be interested in an actual academic research article that went into depths about the greats and their overall contributions.

For example Mbappe is a better footballer than Haaland. Most would agree on that. Mbappe scores prettier goals, but significantly fewer goals. He dribbles more, and loses the ball more. In that sense he is both a better footballer, and a more wasteful footballer. He also has the ball more. A lot of his plays end up in nothing, and some end up in something productive.

Using all available statistical data it would be viable to make an algorithm that accurately predict league difficulty comparable to the rest, and apply conditions like successful involvements and remove the "fluff" from a players action, ie. dribbles that goes nowhere, attempted fancyplays that look nice but ultimately contribute nothing, and look at hard data that shows measurable outcomes that impacts a game directly or indirectly down to a fixed level where the previous play is deemed to not impact play.

Tbh that would be a good subject for a PhD or at the base levels a Masters degree.
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A better footballer?

What does this even mean. Lets see what Pep said after last game, how Haaland always smiling, and thus is easy to work with. Makes team happier, makes team spirit better. Going to work every day is great!
Then look at Mbappe. "biggest baby in world football". As good as he is, as good as his team is. As good as Mbappe is on the ball, does he makes his teammates better? His team and team spirit better? Drama queens like that are notoriously hard to work with. Going to work every day is another day to deal with Mbappe's personal problems...

If I could pick between the two I would take Haaland every time cause he seems soooo much easier to work with, and delivers similar to better results. And a happy team is a better team, and even if a drama queen's personal skills are considered better, I would not risk 1 persons ego ruining team spirit like it seems to me like is happening in PSG.
 
Tom Cato said:
A friend of mine played for the Norwegian national team in the first decade of the 2000s and he has some choice words for the bottling mentality of the team back then, and now. Unsurprisingly he feels that some of the players are not very good at football
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In the end, that fact makes all the difference. I am not overly bothered though as I only care about United.
 
Not that it matters much, but now the best Norwegian players on both genders have the same cute haircut.

Maybe if i get those braids i will start winning a few FIFA games.
 
Haaland is on his way to being one of the greatest poachers of all time! He has already goals but trophies are needed to be on the same table as Inzaghi and Klose for example.
 
Here's a fun resource - Norway's biggest paper VG is doing a Haaland tracker, updated on a running basis. VGs Haaland-tracker: Følg Haalands rekord-jakt live

It's in Norwegian, but easy enough to follow. The two graphs are the main things. The top one compares his cumulative PL scoring output this season and compares it to Shearer, Cole and Salah in their best seasons and after a given number of games.

The bottom one follows his cumulative CL scoring output, comparing it to Messi, Lewandowski, Benzema, Mbappe, Cristiano Ronaldo and Raul after a similar number of games. That one you can also flip to compare by age rather than games (the buttons above, tagged "Kamper" (games) and "Alder" (age) respectively). You can also switch it from CL to PL career numbers compared to Aguero, Rooney, Cole, Shearer and Kane.
 
justsomebloke said:
Here's a fun resource - Norway's biggest paper VG is doing a Haaland tracker, updated on a running basis. VGs Haaland-tracker: Følg Haalands rekord-jakt live

It's in Norwegian, but easy enough to follow. The two graphs are the main things. The top one compares his cumulative PL scoring output this season and compares it to Shearer, Cole and Salah in their best seasons and after a given number of games.

The bottom one follows his cumulative CL scoring output, comparing it to Messi, Lewandowski, Benzema, Mbappe, Cristiano Ronaldo and Raul after a similar number of games. That one you can also flip to compare by age rather than games (the buttons above, tagged "Kamper" (games) and "Alder" (age) respectively). You can also switch it from CL to PL career numbers compared to Aguero, Rooney, Cole, Shearer and Kane.
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Surely the CL tracker is the thing though? The likelihood is that he won't spend more than a few years in the PL. Also, I don't think the PL has actually had a goalscorer of this calibre ever, in comparison to other leagues and old time English football. Shearer is top dog and 260 goals or whatever he has really isn't that much in the grand scheme of things.
 
Shearers goalscoring is pretty elite in the grand scheme of things.

La liga top scorers - Here he would be 3d, behind Messi and Ronaldo
Serie a top scorers - Here he would be 2d, first if we count his goals from old premier leauge first division.
Bundesliga top scorers - Here he would be 4th, 3d if his first goals counted

So not the absolute best but pretty damn good if you compare to the other european elite leauges.
 
Cantona_7_ said:
Shearers goalscoring is pretty elite in the grand scheme of things.

La liga top scorers - Here he would be 3d, behind Messi and Ronaldo
Serie a top scorers - Here he would be 2d, first if we count his goals from old premier leauge first division.
Bundesliga top scorers - Here he would be 4th, 3d if his first goals counted

So not the absolute best but pretty damn good if you compare to the other european elite leauges.
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There were more games per a Premier League season when Shearer played. I'd also say the Premier league is of a far better quality today than back in the 90s, where English teams largely struggled in Europe.
 
Moby said:
He's just entering his peak. There'll be seasons where he will hit 60-70 or possibly more. If he can avoid injury issues he will break their record.
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Scary thing is City are in contention for the treble in his first season. Sky is the limit once he 'settles' in his second.
 
The guy is ridiculous and it's painfully annoying.

But, this is a City side who haven't even played with a proper striker for large parts of the past few years but create an insane amount of chances. You could have put any of the top level number 9s up there and they'd score goal after goal.

Had they got Kane last season, it wouldn't have been a case of, well, at least they didn't get Haaland but more talking about how Kane's ridiculous and it's painfully annoying.

One positive about him though is he is likely to inspire a whole new generation of proper strikers, which have been sorely missed from the game.
 
Cantona_7_ said:
Shearers goalscoring is pretty elite in the grand scheme of things.

La liga top scorers - Here he would be 3d, behind Messi and Ronaldo
Serie a top scorers - Here he would be 2d, first if we count his goals from old premier leauge first division.
Bundesliga top scorers - Here he would be 4th, 3d if his first goals counted

So not the absolute best but pretty damn good if you compare to the other european elite leauges.
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Playing for Newcastle and Blackburn as well.

Who players played for seems to be overlooked when doing comparisons.
 
Marwood said:
Playing for Newcastle and Blackburn as well.

Who players played for seems to be overlooked when doing comparisons.
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Both Rovers and Newcastle were quite competitive sides during his time there, well, at least early on for Newcastle so it's not like he was playing for Norwich and Oldham.

Still very impressive of course.
 
I wonder if he has a chance for the ballon d'or, its hard to see anyone beating Messi but he has 11 CL goals with 4 more games possibly to go. 30 pl goals with 9 games to go. Breaking all sorts of records, obviously he'd need to win everything and score a lot, but is it possible? Or is Messi and the world cup a little too far for him to beat?
 
JagUTD said:
Both Rovers and Newcastle were quite competitive sides during his time there, well, at least early on for Newcastle so it's not like he was playing for Norwich and Oldham.

Still very impressive of course.
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They were quite competitive but mainly because they had Alan Shearer up top.

But obviously nowhere near as good as the sides he could have played for. When Blacbirn won the league they had Wilcox and Ripley as their wide men. Not exactly world beaters.

Imagine him at his peak in either City or Liverpool for the last 5 years. I genuinely think he'd be putting up Haaland numbers and would be more exciting to watch at the same time.
 
JagUTD said:
Both Rovers and Newcastle were quite competitive sides during his time there, well, at least early on for Newcastle so it's not like he was playing for Norwich and Oldham.

Still very impressive of course.
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Were gonna post the same, in his first 5-6 seasons Blackburn were a top 4 side so can compair to Spurs in modern times. He also got 16 champion leauge games in a time with fewer games and 31 Uefa cup games so both teams were right behind the top dogs in the leauge of the time.

Late 90's us and Arsenal just pulled far ahead and Newcastle fall apart, but he still kept banging them in.

I notice in the season he scored 34 he also had 13 leauge assist so Haaland still has a while to go for overall goal contributions for a leauge season, but Shearer played 90 minuts of all the 44 games so I guess it is fairer to compair to 38 game seasons.
 
Andersonson said:
His pass for the second goal was top top class
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It was impressive tbh. Not necessarily because it was a really hard pass to pull off or anything but more that he seemed to have already decided that he was going to clip it to the back post before he even received the ball, which says a lot about his reading of the game.

I also thought his finish was good, he guided it past the keeper it into the net rather than thrashing at it.
 
It's gonna suck watching City win the treble. Arsenal will give them the league one way or another. They'll easily beat united in the FA Cup final or Sheffield. CL is the one tricky trophy. Real Madrid or maybe Napoli are the only hope of beating them. Haaland is gonna drag them to win it all.
 
JagUTD said:
The guy is ridiculous and it's painfully annoying.

But, this is a City side who haven't even played with a proper striker for large parts of the past few years but create an insane amount of chances. You could have put any of the top level number 9s up there and they'd score goal after goal.

Had they got Kane last season, it wouldn't have been a case of, well, at least they didn't get Haaland but more talking about how Kane's ridiculous and it's painfully annoying.

One positive about him though is he is likely to inspire a whole new generation of proper strikers, which have been sorely missed from the game.
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Yeah will never understand why Mourinho didn't want to listen when he was at Molde,whatever Jose's view on signing young players
 
AaronRedDevil said:
It's gonna suck watching City win the treble. Arsenal will give them the league one way or another. They'll easily beat united in the FA Cup final or Sheffield. CL is the one tricky trophy. Real Madrid or maybe Napoli are the only hope of beating them. Haaland is gonna drag them to win it all.
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Maybe Milan, with their history in this competition, could win a final.
Don't see why so many rule them out already, they crushed Napoli recently in the league game, this might not be as easy for Napoli as many thinks it is.
 
Rojow said:
He is not, the best player in the world. He is the best goalscorer.

I don't get why people don't get the difference.
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People can have different opinions to you.
 
Rojow said:
He is not, the best player in the world. He is the best goalscorer.

I don't get why people don't get the difference.
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Some people don't understand that nuance. But yeah, he's a sensational scorer. Already the highest goal total in the Premier league era for an English club in all competitions. He's going to easily get 50 and have the highest total in the post WW2 era.
 
UnbiasedObserver said:
Haaland is on his way to being one of the greatest poachers of all time! He has already goals but trophies are needed to be on the same table as Inzaghi and Klose for example.
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Weird comparison. Haaland is already so much better goalscorer than Inzaghi and Klose.

Inzaghi
Peak season - 30 goals in 49 games
Club career - 288 goals in 623 games
International career - 25 goals in 57 games

Klose
Peak season - 31 goals in 40 games
Club career - 258 goals in 667 games
International career - 71 goals in 137 games

Vs

Haaland
Peak season - 45 goals in 39 games (ongoing)
Club career - 200 goals in 239 games (ongoing)
International career - 21 goals in 23 games (ongoing)


He is definitely on his way to challenge the best goalscorer of all time, if he managed to keep that up for another decade or so.

He should be compared with the likes of Muller, Puskas, those all time great elite goalscorer, instead of Inzaghi and Klose.
 
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Rojow said:
He is not, the best player in the world. He is the best goalscorer.

I don't get why people don't get the difference.
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Maybe the difference isn't as clear-cut as you think? Not that I'm agreeing he's the best player in the world, but he's an exceptional player in his position, and excels at precisely those aspects of the game that you'd most want in a striker. He doesn't have the broad range of skills and traits that you'd typically get from, say, a world class defensive midfielder, but then again, is it necessarily and by definition better to have a broad range of skills than to have an extreme level in the areas that matter most in your position? I think the bottom line here has to be that there is more than one way to be a great player, and that completeness isn't indisputably the measuring rod here.
 
Andrade said:
It was impressive tbh. Not necessarily because it was a really hard pass to pull off or anything but more that he seemed to have already decided that he was going to clip it to the back post before he even received the ball, which says a lot about his reading of the game.

I also thought his finish was good, he guided it past the keeper it into the net rather than thrashing at it.
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For all of his many qualities this seems to be his strongest one in my opinion. His reading of the game is excellent, which guides his exceptional movement and allows him to make use of his pace and power etc.
 
balaks said:
I can't agree with this - he is certainly the best goal scorer in the world and probably the most efficient player in the world - but the 'best player' I can't agree with that.
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OK, so the question that raises is what defines who is the best player in the world? What are the criteria?
 
balaks said:
I can't agree with this - he is certainly the best goal scorer in the world and probably the most efficient player in the world - but the 'best player' I can't agree with that.
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Who is the best player in the world ATM?
 
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