With the dust of Erling Haaland’s debut season for Manchester City now settled, it’s hard to describe it as anything other than phenomenal.
Treble winner: check.
Premier League record for most goals in a season: check.
Football Writers’ Association Footballer of the Year winner: check.
Premier League Player and Young Player of the Season winner: check.
Adulation of City boss Pep Guardiola and the Manchester City faithful: check.
And the list goes on.
Manchester Evening News Manchester City writer Joe Bray doesn’t think the season could have gone any better for the 22-year-old.
He said: “He’s just been inevitable. When the ball goes in the box, his movement to convert all those chances has been ridiculous.
“Yes, he scores plenty of rebounds and close-range goals, but you’ve got to make the space for that.
“If it was so easy, it would have been done before.”
The Sun football editor Charlie Wyett and Bray both point to Haaland enjoying a relatively injury-free season as one of the main reasons for his success.
Wyett said: “As we saw at [Borussia] Dortmund, he sometimes picked up problems, so it was great to see no issues with City [this season].”
Bray added: “Credit should go to the medical team for keeping him fit for most of the season.”
Haaland featured in 92% of City’s Premier League games last season (35/38), up from the 71% of Bundesliga matches (24/34) he played in for Dortmund in 2021/22.
Those 35 Premier League appearances resulted in 36 goals, compared to the 22 times he found the net in his final Bundesliga season.
The trend appears to be the more the Norwegian plays, the more he scores.
His ability to stay consistently fit whilst playing in England will be crucial as Wyett highlights the physicality of the Premier League as being a potential issue.
Wyett said: “The biggest thing for him is to stay injury free [moving forward]. But a player his size in England will eventually get knocks.”
Worryingly for Premier League defences, Guardiola believes Haaland has the capacity to get even better.
But having demonstrated his incredible goalscoring prowess, the question is, where else can he improve?
The answer potentially lies when Haaland is without the ball.
As the FA Cup and Champions League finals showed, when his teammates are unable to give him the service he needs, his influence on games can become minimal.
His game currently is all about trying to score goals and not a lot else.
As the table below shows, Haaland had the highest percentage of touches which were shots (14.8%) out of any player who scored at least 15 Premier League goals last season.
Wyett doesn’t see this as a cause for concern however, saying: “As for his all-round game, awareness and work off the ball, that will improve as he matures.”
Bray believes Haaland should look to develop his link-up play and points to Harry Kane as someone he can look to model himself on.
Premier League and Sofascore statistics highlight Kane’s ability to get more involved with play compared to Haaland.
Across the 2022/23 Premier League season, the Spurs forward averaged 38.8 touches per match and made 851 passes, of which 329 were forward.
Haaland meanwhile only averaged 23.7 touches per match and made just 480 passes, of which 78 went forwards.
The England captain also led the way for through balls played (20 to Haaland’s four) and crosses made (37 to Haaland’s 12).
Their respective heatmaps show too just how more prominent Kane was all over the pitch compared to his Manchester City counterpart (Kane below, Haaland bottom).
Under Guardiola though, Bray is confident the Spaniard will be able to broaden Haaland’s footballing skill set and thinks it’s scary to think how good he can become.
Bray said: “He looks genuinely happy at City, everything is set up for him to thrive and if he continues [on the trajectory he’s on], it won’t take long before he’s among the Premier League greats.”
Main image: Erling Haaland 2023 by Jacek Stanislawek is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Heatmaps courtesy of sofascore.com
