Macaulay Langstaff of Notts County is currently the top scorer in League Two but last season, the 27-year-old from Stockton was being hailed as ‘the non-league Erling Haaland’ because of the sheer stupidity of his numbers.
Goal-a-game Langstaff said he was thrilled with that comparison at the time, as anybody would be.
I’m not so sure Haaland will share in his delight upon hearing how Roy Keane has likened him to Langstaff in a way, saying the Manchester City striker’s all-round performance against Arsenal was like that of a ‘League Two player’.
It was a lazy throwaway line from Keane after City’s first 0-0 in 76 Premier League games. An unfair one, because Haaland’s general play wasn’t the problem in that drab draw.
Mohamed Salah unleashed 12 shots against Brighton on Sunday – his most in a Premier League game on his 254th appearance – as Liverpool created chance after chance for him to try to score.
Erling Haaland (right) struggled to get into the game against Arsenal and had just two shots and less than 30 touches
Roy Keane (left) blasted the striker’s general play after the match and claimed it was of the standard of a League Two footballer
Notts County’s Macaulay Langstaff is the top scorer in League Two with 24 goals from 40 appearances
That wasn’t the case for Haaland against Arsenal. Gabriel Magalhaes and William Saliba were aggressive whenever one of them was shadowing him, showing why they are at the heart of the Premier League’s meanest defence, but Mikel Arteta’s team also went man-to-man out of possession across the pitch.
They stifled City so that they could not create the chances they usually do and that was Pep Guardiola’s biggest problem. The onus is on City’s players to provide for Haaland.
Not vice versa, in spite of Keane’s criticism of his overall contribution to Sunday’s stalemate.
City have failed to score home and away to Arsenal in the Premier League this season. When they face opponents who defend with as much determination as their title rivals, it is only natural that Haaland is hammered for not doing something different in order to change the game.
But Guardiola did not bring the 23-year-old Norwegian to the club to do what Harry Kane was doing for Tottenham, dropping deep to unselfishly set up Heung-min Son.
He’s got Kevin De Bruyne and Bernardo Silva and everyone else for that. Besides, the midfield is busy enough as it is, with John Stones an expert at moving up from central defence to act as that extra man.
If City wanted their star striker to carry that skillset, they would have coughed up the cash for Kane. Instead, they got the game’s greatest finisher in Haaland.
They signed him to stay high, to occupy the opposition centre backs, to stick the ball in the back of the net. He did that last season, with 36 goals in 35 games in the Premier League.
He’s done it this season, with 18 in 24, and he will be the first to confess he messed up the one chance that came his way at the Etihad Stadium when he accidentally nutmegged himself after a corner.
If critics believes that Haaland should be doing more than patrolling the penalty box, it is a good debate to have after another game against Arsenal in which he failed to have a shot on target.
But I believe it is wrong to hammer Haaland for not trying to turn creator in a team that is chock-full of them. The more appropriate discussion to have would be on his form in front of goal. Since returning from injury in January, Haaland has scored four goals in eight Premier League starts.
Haaland raced to the Premier League Golden Boot last season with a record 36 goals, and he might still repeat the feat this term
The Norwegian was aggressively marked out of the game by a combination of Arsenal centre-backs Gabriel (pictured) and William Saliba
City boss Pep Guardiola has shaped his system to maximise Haaland’s unmatched finishing ability
For a regular striker, that would be a respectable return. For Haaland, it is nowhere near the standards he has set for himself as City’s executor-in-chief. Could he improve in his link-up play? Sure, he could be cleaner.
But Haaland isn’t the world’s worst when dabbling in that department. Certainly his level is not League Two. He can hold the ball up better than most and it isn’t as if he cannot play a pass or turns slower than milk.
He was much more involved in the build-up at Borussia Dortmund but they didn’t have the cast of creators that currently surround him at City.
It was not down to Haaland’s lack of creativity that City did not take charge of the Premier League’s title race on Sunday. It was because Arsenal made sure he was not created for.
