Haaland chose poorly…and lost the secret of his superiority in Borussia Dortmund!

The Norwegian star, Erling Haaland, Manchester City’s top scorer, appeared in a very disappointing manner against his counterpart, Crystal Palace, in the 27th round match that brought the two teams together in the English Premier League.

The Norwegian, despite scoring from the penalty spot, did not hit the target from open play, making it one of his worst matches this season.

Carragher was right
“We do not see everything that Erling Haaland can offer, not because Haaland is bad, but because of the team he plays for. He does not even provide 60% of his capabilities,” were the words of Jamie Carragher last week about the Norwegian star, the top scorer.

Carragher’s words were met with a lot of criticism due to the player’s record record of goals before reaching the last third of the competition, but the man was speaking nothing but honesty, and today’s meeting against Crystal Palace is the best proof of that.

Wrong choice and advantage of Borussia Dortmund
Haaland may be the current Premier League’s top scorer and set many records, but this does not necessarily mean that he had a good match or that his choice of Manchester City was sound from the start.

The whole idea boils down to one thing, how does Manchester City help Haaland score? How many chances did he get in today’s match?

Simply any attacker with these characteristics will face problems against teams that defend heavily like Crystal Palace, especially when it comes to a player who needs spaces behind defenders to score like Haaland.

On the contrary, the situation was in Borussia Dortmund, Haaland was finding spaces in the opponents’ defenses, in a tournament that relied on quick play and counter-attacks, whose presence was mainly linked to spaces.

rule point
There is no talk here about Haaland’s failure, i.e. the failure of that which we are talking about for a player who scored so many goals in that record number of matches.

But all we can say is that Haaland’s numbers should have been much more than they are if he had joined another team that finds more spaces in the defenses of his opponents than the situation in Manchester City.

The whole point
Haaland is certainly a great player, and the records he achieved in his first season only are just the beginning for him in the English Premier League, which may have all his numbers written in his name by the end of his contract at Manchester City.

But there is no doubt that his position in Manchester City could have been better, had it not been for the mass of defenses and the lack of space available to him.