Erling Haaland to Manchester City .. Did Guardiola sign the right striker?!

At City's board meeting early this year, the club's decision-makers were presented with a £190m request, and when they asked why they were told it was the value of a "player" contract, certainly not Harry Kane, the request to negotiate with his club collapsed. Irreversible after Tottenham refused to negotiate the sale of their first star categorically.

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Weeks after Kane's failed move to City in September of last year 2021, talk began to center in the offices of the Etihad Stadium about the possibility of contracting that hired, innocent-faced, Erling Haaland, Dortmund's goal machine, and by Christmas there was real fear within The club from Real Madrid's progress in its negotiations with the player, which accelerated the entry of City managers on the line to change the direction of the Norwegian international.

Halland is now a striker for Manchester City after the English club succeeded in convincing him, but what many do not know is that Halland was not the only party that the club had to persuade to come, but Pep Guardiola as well!

He was in love with Harry Kane and saw him as the most suitable striker for his team, which makes us wait a little before unleashing our expectations from the deal, because the management's attempt to "convince" the coach to sign the best player of his generation should worry us all.

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Better than everyone?

Erling Haaland (Reuters)

According to "FBref", only one player has surpassed Erling Haaland since the beginning of 2020 in the number of times he put the ball past his opponents (54), which is Lewandowski with 75 goals. Haaland scored in that period more than Messi, Ronaldo, Benzema and recent The watch is Kylian Mbappe, not only that, what makes the matter more exceptional is that the Norwegian achieved this at only twenty-one years old, and he needed only 5,386 minutes to do so, while none of the above-mentioned players played less than 6 thousand minutes, meaning that The Norwegian scores a goal in almost every game.

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And we add you to poetry Beta, since the beginning of his professional career, that monster scored 140 goals with clubs and his country’s team in all tournaments before his twenty-second year was completed, and given the average goals in the “domestic league” that were scored at each age, Haaland’s scoring rate (93 ) at his current age is higher than the rates of emperors of his age, specifically;

Messi, Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and Lewandowski.

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Haaland's rate of scoring is currently sharper than the early careers of Benzema, Lewandowski, Messi and Ronaldo… pic.twitter.com/JgrHPZ9u9A

— Peak x2 (@STactics3) May 27, 2022

Not only does Haaland score more than his peers of his age, but more than the emperors who needed years and years of experience and abundant knowledge accumulation at the technical and tactical level to reach that uniqueness, and here lies precisely the greatness of the Norwegian, only speed and strength will not reach him to that extent. From excellence, he reached this because he obtained sound technical and planning references at an early age, thanks to his unique cognitive abilities that allowed him to absorb complex matters for a player of his age, as confirmed by his former coach at the Norwegian “Brian” team, “Alfie Bernstein”.

Halland masters the relationship between time and space, which Dutch coach Raymond Verheim defines as “Space-time characteristics”, as he knows well how to live in the defenders’ show and starts his movements from there, while fully adjusting the timings of the attack, and he never errs in the direction, and always What moves at the right speed in the right lane that eventually puts him in the loop, and that mastery is not normal for a player of his age.

"Since eleven Haaland has learned different kinds of moves, and it has become in his subconscious, at the age of 13 children are asked to decide whether they want to continue with the buds team and play the game to enjoy without pressure, or play with the "elite" team in which he trains The players are more on the technical and tactical side and the friction with the first-class teams, and Haaland definitely chose to move up, and this developed his decision-making process, because if you train with good players, you will become better because the speed of play is higher, and you have to think faster, and after a while you will not have to think Because you will act automatically."

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Alan Shearer agrees that what really distinguishes Haaland is not the accuracy of his shots and his unique ability to finish, but his movements that get him to that stage from the ground up, where he believes that the Norwegian's movements should be the focus of attention for a player of his size, because he is unobservable. , Shearer believes that Haaland is able to score 40 goals in the league with Man City, and here we must be silent a little, because everything that was mentioned, despite its greatness, is not a guarantee of the continuity of those rates in the future in general, especially with Manchester City in particular.

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Not a guarantee

There is a common belief that clubs only sign players for what they used to do with their previous teams, but the bigger work now lies in analyzing what is “expected” from the player in the new environment, and estimating his chances of success. When it comes to signing strikers, we have to understand two facts.

The first is that it has become well known that the number of goals the attacker has in the past is not necessarily a guarantee that he will score at the same rates in the future, and the second is that football is not a linear game in which the equations are straight, but on the contrary, it is a complex and chaotic game, and all that everyone is trying to do is Understand their anarchy and reduce them relatively.

We can use some names as clues. Lukaku, Haveritz and Timo Werner were on top with their previous teams before the change of direction, and then there was a resounding decline in the level, as none of them could score half of what they scored before, and part of that lies in the change of environment;

Playing style, coach, teammates, opponents and playing characteristics in the new league, and in the case of Havertz and Werner we might add the so-called "tax" of the Bundesliga.

We can use a similar approach, swapping out xG for VAEP, to learn something more specific.

For example, a young FW moving from the Bundesliga to the EPL *cough* Haaland *cough* might expect their xG/90 rate to drop by 0.07 (22% relative to the median).

pic.twitter.com/jL4wFRpAua

— Tony (@TonyElHabr) June 18, 2021

The other part is that the ability of strikers to create and get scoring opportunities is usually more consistent than their ability to finish, and one reason for the existence of the "expected goals" scale is that they are more reliable evidence than the actual goals of the only purpose that the club really want from their new striker;

Future goals and ensuring long-term registration prospects.

The expected goals ratio gives us an idea of ​​the attacker's ability to move and how well he can occupy the most dangerous places closest to the goal, which in turn increases his team's chances of scoring.

Believe it or not, Haaland's first problem is that he scores "much more" than expected, he has scored 74 goals in the league and the Champions League since his move to Dortmund from an expected 54.5 goals, and compared to the ending rates of the game's top scorer, Haaland is the rate of ending Leo Messi since 2017. Since joining the German League, he would have scored 49 goals instead of 54 and 43 at Cristiano Ronaldo's rate, which shows that Halland will continue to kill his opponents, but it is unlikely that he will continue at the current rates at which he greatly outperforms himself.

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Haaland's finishing probably won't stay this hot forever… pic.twitter.com/UAXRKKBBE5

— Peak x2 (@STactics3) May 27, 2022

who don't run

Haaland's second problem for Manchester City, in particular, is that he runs too much, which is completely logical for the fastest player in the Bundesliga. Halland in offensive transformations compared to the rest of the attackers at that stage, specifically in the size of offensive contributions.

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But what makes the Norwegian's most important attribute a problem at Etihad Stadium?

Simply because they represent a systematic opposition, let's go back to the past a bit;

After losing to Tottenham on November 21, 2020, City ranked 13th in the English Premier League, after it seemed a miserable team with the ball and unable to use it effectively, and without it it was a profane team, but since early January of last year, it has not They lose any match until the end, and they managed to win the title and return from afar, so what has changed?

“The only difference is we run less, we run too much, too much, without the ball you have to run, but with the ball you have to walk or run a lot less than that, you stay centered and you stay in your position and let the ball run for you, we got better at that. during these matches.

(Pep Guardiola) (9)

By slowing the pace, City won the league last season, and managed to clinch the title again this season in the last minutes against Aston Villa. The slowest in Europe, and the average time of those bouts was 13.14 seconds per bout, thus the team had the longest possession of all the teams in Europe.

They found another way to win the race, not by accelerating, but by holding the brakes, which brings us to another fundamental question;

Why did Guardiola take that particular direction?

Because that coincided with Aguero's age and Jesus' inability to lead the team's front line, which prompted Pep to return to basics;

Goals in football do not guarantee victory, but the goal difference, so Pep had to in the first place to ensure protection and stability for his team on the field so that he would not lose if he could not maintain an abundant offensive production without a striker, and the only way Pep knows to achieve this is to have The ball, calming down and never losing it in an attempt to defend it.

So Chiki had to convince him of the idea of ​​Halland, who is fluent in different football and another different format. We have not seen Halland before scoring from the positions from which City usually create his chances, where stable possession and rotating the ball from side to side in an attempt to break the opponent’s blocs in the last third, given To the Norwegian’s goals, we will notice a pattern often on his goals, which is that the bulk of them come either through offensive transformations, or by escaping into the space behind the opponent’s defense line, which are tributaries that Man City cannot guarantee for several reasons, unless the team decides at some point to change its philosophy and research On how to adapt to the characteristics of his new attacker.

There is no room for gray

American analyst and writer Ryan O'Hanlon thinks it's puzzling that the best scorer on the planet probably can't make his team better, and in part because that team is already at the top of the game, according to Stats perform. City this season is 1.87 goals, and since 2010 the only team in the five major leagues that has had a better rate is Paris Saint-Germain with 1.93 goals in the 2019-20 season, and given the competitive level of the English Premier League currently, it is unlikely that City will achieve a greater number or So repeat the current number.

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Ryan believes that Manchester City's period with Guardiola can be divided into two eras;

The first is the Fernandinho era, and the second is the Kyle Walker era.

In the first two seasons, City built more around the Brazilian than any other player. At the time, the team played Kevin De Bruina and David Silva in the inner channels with purely attacking roles in the half spaces. Covering spaces and stopping counter-attacks alone, in addition to his ability to use the ball in possession periods and always provide the team with lines-breaking passes.

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With this dynamic, City managed to win two league titles in a row with a total of 198 points, before falling back in the third season due to the decline of its most important players;

Fernandinho, City finished second, it is true that they scored 102 goals, but they allowed 12 more than the previous season.

Then it all fell apart in the first few months of last season, and here Fernandinho was gradually left out for Rodri at the center level, but Fernandinho's real replacement at the career level was another unique player named Kyle Walker.

With the improvement of Rodri, and Cancelo's continued penchant for depth, City were able to hold the ball for longer, thus reducing the team's time in the defensive state of pressing and chasing. Because of his record rebound speed and his superiority in the duels in a way that helps him cover vast areas in the rebounds and compensate his teammates with unprecedented regularity.

It is worth noting that Man City did not receive any goal against Real Madrid in the presence of Walker on the field, while it conceded 6 goals in the two matches in his absence, which may be precisely the reason for contracting Haaland, according to O'Hanlon.

What does Haaland have to do with all this?

The idea is that Walker has reached the age of 32, and he plays one of the most demanding physical roles in the game, as he did not exceed the 2,000-minute barrier in the last two seasons due to injuries, and it is unreasonable for the team to continue to rely on him in the same way.

Here, O'Hanlon believes that the contract with Halland may be a sign of the team's desire to grow in a different direction, less control, and more speed, in proportion to all the current data, because the team will not be able to achieve the same amount of safety without Walker, and Halland's characteristics do not fit The current Manchester City, therefore one of them has to change for the other, and here is Pep Guardiola's task, either to succeed in Haaland's involvement in the team, or to reshape the team in proportion to the best striker in the world, there is no common ground at least for Ryan.

O'Hanlon's theory remains ink on paper. It may find its way to reality according to the aforementioned data, or reality may find another way according to other data that the American writer has not calculated.

First, because the realization of his vision means Pep’s departure from himself, abandoning his methodology, and becoming another coach after all the successes he achieved with his style and beliefs, and this is an unlikely possibility, and secondly, because football is not linear, and subject to many variables, and one of these variables is The existence of a completely different solution did not come to the mind of Pep Guardiola, just as the transfer of Walker to Fernandinho, who came to him out of nowhere at the time.

And we must not forget when mentioning the variables that we are talking about a twenty-one-year-old player who has not yet reached the peak of his level, nor has he reached the end of his limits by learning.

According to his former coaches, Haaland is a coachable player, and this quality is one of the most important qualities that coaches look for in their players, and therefore the possibility of the Norwegian adapting to the "Pep" style and acquiring new characteristics in different stages of play is possible.

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In the end, if you are a City fan, and the O'Hanlon theory bothers you, we can only advise you to trust your historic coach and new player, but if you are a competitor, you will certainly hope the theory is true.

But if you are neither this nor that, your belief in Haaland's admitted success has been cast into doubt, so that our main question remains unanswered, like open endings, until Haaland himself decides to answer the skeptics and write the ending himself.

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