Gary Lineker highlighted a key difference between Erling Haaland and Harry Kane as he labelled Manchester City’s star as the ‘perfect striker’.
Ironically, Kane was set to be Sergio Aguero’s successor in Man City’s attack in 2021, but the then-Tottenham striker’s big money move never materialised.
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Now, Kane is starring for Bayern Munich and Haaland, who signed for Man City from Borussia Dortmund in 2022, is already having a third stunning season in a row for Pep Guardiola’s side.
The Norwegian bagged a hat-trick against Ipswich on Saturday in his side’s 4-1 win, a game Lineker and his The Rest Is Football podcast co-hosts Alan Shearer and Micah Richards discussed on this week’s episode.
Ex-City star Richards brought up Kane dropping deeper and getting involved in play for England at Euro 2024, before highlighting Haaland is not interested in doing that, opting to stay high up the pitch instead.
And Lineker believes this allows Haaland to be more profitable in front of goal.
The former England striker said: “I thought it highlighted as well the importance of the way Haaland plays and plays so high.
“Because if he constantly spins behind, defenders will get nervous so they drop a little bit deeper.
“Therefore, your midfield players will have more space behind.
“Whereas if he did drop 20 yards into midfield, then he actually crowds it out more so there’s no space for those midfield players.
“So it’s very important.”
And he thinks if Kane adopted Haaland’s positioning, he’d bag more goals.
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He continued: “I think we did talk about this in the summer with England, because Kane likes to drop.
“But if he can stay higher, then you can create a little bit of space in behind. I think he does that brilliantly and he’s that perfect striker where he’s patient enough.
“He doesn’t care if he touches it ten times or 50 times in the game. He cares about how much he touches it into the back of the net.”
Kane’s goal return last term was nothing to sniff at, though.
The England captain scored a whopping 44 goals in 45 games in all competitions in his debut campaign in Germany.
He’s already got off the mark this season, netting against Ulm in a 4-0 win in the first round of the DFB Pokal. He also registered two assists in the 3-2 win over Wolfsburg on Sunday.
Haaland, meanwhile, scored 38 times in 45 games last season and has four to his name this campaign already.
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