Erling Haaland was in sensational form for Manchester City against Manchester United this weekend, and it gave ex-Red Devil Luke Chadwick the opportunity to get a really close look at the prolific Norwegian.
Haaland netted a brilliant hat-trick against Man Utd in a 6-3 Manchester Derby victory for Pep Guardiola’s side, taking his total for the season up to 17 goals in 11 games in all competitions.
Watching Haaland play, it’s not always that obvious how he’s such an elite forward, as he isn’t as obviously fast or skilful in comparison to other recent greats such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe.
However, Chadwick says Haaland more than makes up for that with his sharp focus on the pitch, which helps him get his movement spot on when City’s creative players have the ball.
“His numbers are frightening since coming to the Premier League, and they were already exceptional enough at his previous clubs,” Chadwick told CaughtOffside.
“I think with him it’s not that he’s particularly fast or skilful, but he’s got a great hunger and single-mindedness to score goals. We’ve seen great goal-scorers in the past who want to get more involved in the game, but he just wants to get in the box.
“You can see his movement every time the ball gets wide, it’s fantastic – every time a Foden, a Silva, a De Bruyne gets the ball in dangerous areas, his movement is perfect, he always knows the right place to be.
“He’s such a powerful runner as well, and once he points to where he wants the ball to be, there’s only one man who’s getting there first. He looks so far like the ultimate goal-scorer – there was that stat about how long it took the likes of Ronaldo, Lampard and Vardy to get to three hat-tricks in the Premier League and he’s done it in just eight games, it’s ridiculous.
“And let’s not forget he holds the ball up perfectly well, and can create goals too as we saw with two assists against United. He’s that missing link for City, since they had Aguero. He’s an absolute machine and it’s clear he’s going to suit City perfectly with the creative talent they’ve got in this team.”
Haaland joined from Borussia Dortmund this summer and you can find out more about his long-term future at City, including details of a future release clause from Fabrizio Romano via CaughtOffside’s Substack.