Recently, former Manchester United captain and prominent football pundit, Roy Keane, provided an assessment of Erling Haaland that, at face value, appears downright ludicrous. Keane, who infamously ended the career of Haaland’s father, Alf Inge, labelled the Norwegian as ‘almost like a League Two player.’
Naturally, such an assessment dominated global headlines. Here was one of English football’s greatest-ever midfielders, and a serial winner, claiming a striker who’s scored more Premier League goals in a single season (36) than any other player operates at a level akin to the fourth division of English football.
Rightly, that sole comment was ridiculed. Manchester City coach, Pep Guardiola, immediately defended his talisman, stating:
“I don’t agree with him [Keane], absolutely not. [Haaland’s] the best striker in the world and he helped us to win what we won last season. Erling is exceptional.”
However, Keane’s comments, made following City’s 0-0 draw with fellow title challengers Arsenal, a fixture described in many circles as a boring battle of attrition, the antithesis of how teams at the top of the Premier League should operate, were in some ways, valid.
No, not his assessment of Erling Haaland, who despite being just a season and a half into life at the club, is Manchester City’s eighth-highest Premier League scorer ever, as being League Two standard. That’s an outrageous claim. The rest could well be argued as valid criticism.
“The level of his general play is so poor,” Keane stated. “In front of goal, he’s the best in the world. But his general play, for such a player, is so poor. He has to improve that.”
In the days following Keane’s comments, clips did the rounds on social media of Haaland doing things at Borussia Dortmund and RB Salzburg he’s rarely done in a City shirt; dropping deep, laying the ball off for teammates and even beating defenders off the dribble.
Also in the days following Keane’s comments, Manchester City, inspired by a Phil Foden hat-trick, put four past an Aston Villa side that beat them earlier in the season. With the Villa match coming so soon after the Arsenal game, and the schedule tightening as City’s season progresses, it was natural for Haaland to sit it out.
Yet, City winning convincingly in his absence, and in light of Keane’s comments, leaves a question mark hanging over City and Haaland’s heads.
Is Manchester City a better team without Erling Haaland?
Any team with Erling Haaland is better for having Erling Haaland. He is, as Roy Keane stated, the best goalscoring striker in the world. And by and large, that’s his job. He did that in 2022-23 when Manchester City won the treble and has continued doing so this season.
At the time of writing, Haaland’s 2023-24 Premier League goal tally is 18 from 24 games. With eight games to spare, he’s equalled the tally of the Golden Boot winners in both the 1997-98 and 1998-99 seasons and one shy of the tally needed to claim that honour in 2008-09.
By the standards of just about any other striker in Premier League history, maybe bar a handful, Haaland is having a great season. By his lofty standards, this campaign has been far from spectacular.
Check us out on socials, @onlysportsanz: Instagram | Twitter | Tik Tok
While the goals have been there, so have the misses. After 24 games, the Norwegian has missed 27 big chances, including, crucially, one late in the game against Arsenal. This is one less than his tally in 35 games in 2022-23. Even the scoring robots are human, a ball misfires of their boot or their header goes wide, these things happen.
The problem is when these things happen, Haaland does not do enough of the other things, the link-up and the hold-up play, to compensate for his inability to ripple the back of the net. Players like Harry Kane, Thierry Henry, Luis Suarez and Teddy Sheringham did.
A strong argument could be made Haaland’s limited involvement in City’s build-up is justified. His presence alone up top occupies defenders and creates space more than him dropping deep and linking up ever would.
In some respects, his presence also limits City. Because he is there they, rightfully, must play through him, must function to feed him crosses and cutbacks and balls in behind, and must look to set up in a way to maximise his threat in front of goal.
That’s not easy to defend; his 54 goals in 59 games attest to that. But it is easier to defend against than five guys rotating, picking apart defenders and playing intricately until a half space opens and a chance beckons.
In Haaland, City has their equivalent to Shaquille O’Neal: give him the ball and he will score. Without him, they’re the mid-2010s Golden State Warriors: a true team populated by scorers cutting, rotating and playing for each other.
Both are great options the envy of teams the world over. But is one better than the other?
From a very small sample size, City’s games against Arsenal and Villa, it would appear they’re better without him.
Better maybe isn’t the correct word. City are a frightening team with Haaland, that much we know. But without him, they seem to function better, their interplay quicker, more intricate. Without him, they operated more like the Manchester City we’ve come to know and fear.
Arsenal, of course, set up to not lose their game against Manchester City. So too did Villa. But Arsenal’s defence is superior to Villa’s, especially in the centre. Gabrial and William Saliba are arguably Europe’s best central defensive pairing. Diego Carlos and Clement Lenglet are fantastic, just not on that level. Ezri Konsa, a natural central defender, play right back for Unai Emery’s side, often forming a wall of three defenders.
Julian Alvarez, Haaland’s replacement up top against Villa, nearly doubled the Norwegian’s touches (42 v 23) and doubled the number of passes (25 v 11). Alvarez’s natural game is far more involved than Haland’s, as the stats show.
The Argentine, often deployed in midfield this season, drops deep, drags defenders out of position and brings his teammates into play with simple touches and layoffs. He does it all while being a fantastic finisher.
Haaland does not do it all, as Keane alluded to. That’s never been his game, even with Pep Guardiola stating his desire for Haaland to get involved in City’s build-up.
“I don’t want him to stay in the box just and score a goal,” the Spaniard said in 2023. Despite this, Haaland’s involvement beyond the penalty box has receded this season. He’s having fewer touches per game and has made fewer key passes than last season.
This is made more glaring by the fact he’s scored four times in nine Premier Leagues this season, albeit following a lengthy spell on the sidelines due to a foot injury. Are the Arsenal and Villa games the exception? Or are they indicative of a wider issue?
In the seven Premier League games Haaland’s missed this season, City average 2.28 goals per game. In the 23 games with him, that average drops slightly to 2.217 goals per game. In games, Haaland’s missed, City’s xG averages out to 2.35 per game, while in games he features their xG drops to 1.93.
There aren’t seismic differences in these figures, but are they indicative of City’s scoring and creating slightly less when they try to funnel their attack through and accommodate a fixed focal point?
Have teams figured out how to defend against Erling Haaland’s Manchester City and forgotten how to defend the fluid City iterations of old, which come alive when Alvarez leads the line? Are City hurting themselves by bending their style to suit the exploits of their supremely talented striker? Only time will tell.
Historically, Haaland isn’t the first footballer teams have sacrificed functionality for and he won’t be the last. Think of any generation’s great goalscorers and in some way, the sides and players around them bent to their will. Rarely is it the other way around.
When you possess a generational goalscorer, the system is designed to get the best around them. Essentially, the 10 other players are the pawns and the goalscorer is the queen. Nine times out of 10, teams and players are rewarded for this.
Check us out on socials, @onlysportsanz: Instagram | Twitter | Tik Tok
Very rarely is it the other way around, a player bending their skills and shifting their ability to score goals in favour of creating a greater functioning side.
Think of Karim Benzema who, in the mid-2010s, was no more than a link man creating space for Cristiano Ronaldo, but blossomed into a true goalscorer once the Portuguese had departed. The Frenchman placed his skills in a duffle bag, rejigged himself to the team’s benefit, and then re-opened the duffle bag when required once Ronaldo was out of the picture.
Only Harry Kane can lay claim to being a highly adaptable exceptional goalscorer. And how has that worked for him and his teams?
This reality, of building the team around the man as opposed to adapting the man to the team, is as old as football itself. Maradona’s Argentina sides were equipped to hide his weaknesses and maximise his many talents. Pep’s City, without Haaland scoring a goal a game, is the latest in a long lineage of sides adapting to their star’s talents.
Check us out on socials, @onlysportsanz: Instagram | Twitter | Tik Tok
Any team with Erling Haaland is a better team for having Erling Haaland. With him or without him City is probably the best team in the world.
With Haaland, they’re death by a single cut, straying from the tiki-taka style Guardiola knows and loves in favour of considered build up and directly feeding Haaland as soon as a chance, no matter how tough, appears. Without him, they’re death by 1,000 cuts, slowly and meticulously filleting their opponent until the right opening arises.
Either way, they’re great. But is one method greater than the other?
