Erling Haaland was Europe’s starboy last season, having incredible performances in every stadium he step foot on and even won a historic treble with Manchester City, but this season hasn’t looked too hot for the Norwegian, and why is that? Today we’ll look at some of the reasons that could’ve caused his slow downfall.
Interlude
Hello, I’m Zeus from https://zeusdamora.com and I’m finally back from a really long break of self discovery, and I mean really long. In the 7 months I’ve been absent, I’ve written countless drafts that I’ve thrown out the window, I re-learnt guitar, joined a band, and I’ve done so much more. And I’ve also deleted every single post, because I want this to be a fresh start for the blog, I want to slowly drift away from the newsletter-like posts I made.
I want to create posts that people could look at now, and forever which is why it’s kind of a bummer how you’re currently reading a post about Haaland’s current form but trust me, this will be a one off type of thing (hopefully).
Back To Haaland
So, Erling Haaland, football’s best tap in merchan- I mean goal poacher. He was arguably one of if not the best footballers last season, and he even almost won the prestigious Ballon D’or.
And so it’s a bit alarming how he’s looked so much worse this season, his finishing has gotten really bad and he isn’t scoring that many goals, has he seriously gone from a football sensation to your average Joe overnight?
What Made Him So Good
I admit that I’m over-exaggerating it just a bit, but I’m just saying what we’re all thinking in our minds. It’s just a little bit frustrating seeing him miss all of his chances and only scoring once every 3 matches or so. This season he’s scored 29 goals in all competitions which is still very impressive and way more than I could manage, but still nowhere near the numbers he put up last season, despite having a higher volume of XG than usual.
What made Haaland so good last season was his positioning, his touch, and his efficiency. Even the Premier League’s best defenders weren’t used to his quick efficient movements which eventually led to him breaking multiple goal-scoring records and taking the world by storm.
It’s also important to note that he had some of the world’s best passers and crossers with the likes of Kevin De Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan, which definitely boosted the amount of goals he scored.
What Might’ve Caused This Sudden Change
Haaland definitely didn’t just switch overnight, there should be a logical explanation for this. There are a few possible reasons, including the following;
- Him getting an injury which ruled him out for 5 games.
- His best mate and team mate, Kevin De Bruyne, getting a hamstring injury for almost half of the season
- Taking his shots much quicker compared to last season
- The world has adapted to his current style of play
Any of these could be at fault for Haaland’s slow decline, but one thing’s for sure. He’s still a beast. In an FA Cup game against Premier League rookies, Luton Town, he scored 5 goals in an overall impressive peformance from City, yes, 5 goals. We have seen glimpses of his former self and we’ve seen that, he is still one of Europe’s best.
Conclusion
I do think that the reason why he hasn’t been scoring as much is because he’s just come back from an injury, and because he’s been shooting quicker compared to last season, and the main factor to this in my humble opinion is; the media, the netizens, us.
If Haaland was any other player he would get all the praise in the world (despite his horrible performances against United, Chelsea, Liverpool, etc). We need to remember that he’s only 23 years old and that he’s just arrived in England.
What’s holding Haaland back is the media’s expectation. I do think that his form has taken a dip and that he isn’t as good as he was last season, but he’s still having a great season. In fact, he has a total of 33 goals and assists in all competitions, which is still better than the likes of Vinicius Jr, Jude Bellingham, and just one shy of Harry Kane’s total amount of goal and assists. I do believe that once he finds his mojo, he’ll start scoring like crazy, especially since Kevin De Bruyne is fit once again.
Thank You
Posts like this will probably come out once every full moon or something because I don’t plan on writing posts like this any time soon. Expect more posts about music, literally anything related to music.
I also plan on writing a few book reviews since I do read quite a bit. Feel free to give me critiscm, praise or suggestions in the comment section below.
Forgive me if this post was a bit bad, (like Haaland against Liverpool), the last time I wrote was like 7 months ago xD.
Thanks for reading.
