Rooney predicts Haaland will dominate the EPL
Haaland is a 22-year-old with 175 goals from 222 senior appearances to his name
Manchester City’s detractors enjoyed seeing Erling Haaland fail to score in the Community Shield.
His misses were played over and over on social media and there were headlines about his “false start”. But Manchester United Wayne Rooney saw the game differently.
‘’I saw City’s big signing confirm why he is going to get a lot of goals in England and will, in my opinion, prove the difference in the title race.
‘’In the Champions League and the Bundesliga Haaland has already proven his qualities at the highest level and last Sunday against Liverpool he was in the right positions, finding chances, moving cleverly and looking quick, strong, and aggressive in his running.
‘’Maybe the main way City, under Pep Guardiola, score is though low balls played across the penalty box. Haaland scored in exactly that manner on his City debut in a friendly with Bayern Munich and against Liverpool the two big opportunities he passed up were in central positions six yards out that he had moved into during attacks where City switched play wide. If he keeps doing that, goal after goal will come — because his finishing ability is not in doubt.
‘’He’s the 22-year-old with 175 goals from 222 senior appearances to his name and, given the number of chances City create, I think he’s capable of scoring a goal per game in England and winning this season’s Golden Boot.
‘’Of course he’ll have to adapt. He’s not going to have as much room as he did when playing for Borussia Dortmund, where a lot of his goals came when counterattacking and breaking. City don’t really score those goals and, for Haaland, it is now going to be more about playing with his back to goal and about smaller runs rather than bigger runs.
Teams sit back against City meaning there is less space for their strikers, but what Guardiola’s teams do so well is wear you down, they keep playing and going side to side until finding the right time to put the ball in the box. With his size, Haaland is good in the air and he’s aggressive in the way he attacks the ball — he throws everything at it. This gives City a weapon they didn’t have before and will make them more dangerous than ever when they play that cross in.
The one thing Haaland will have to do, above all else, is be patient. I’ve spoken about the importance of patience on the pitch in previous columns. Patience is key to playing No 9 and was something I struggled with initially when I converted to striker from No 10 early in my Manchester United career.’’
