Michail Antonio has claimed that Erling Haaland has been missing sitters since last season.
While the Manchester City number nine did manage to right his wrongs by eventually getting on the scoresheet against Manchester United on Sunday, Gary Lineker claimed his miss before half-time was “the worst” he had ever seen at the top level.
Despite Haaland’s eventual goal, it seems like there has been a lot of discourse around an admittedly shocking miss from him in the Manchester Derby.
Michail Antonio says Erling Haaland has been missing sitters since last season
Considering most players, let alone a striker of the 23-year-old’s quality would have buried the chance, onlookers were stunned to see him sky his effort.
Fortunately for the Leeds-born goalscorer, Phil Foden was in the mood to save the day and Manchester City still remain firm favourites to win the Premier League title after their latest victory.
Michail Antonio, however, thinks that Erling Haaland has been missing easy goalscoring opportunities for Manchester City since last season.
“This season, he’s missed quite a few, to be fair. Even last season, he was missing quite a few sitters. He was scoring the harder ones than the easy ones and still beating all the records. Unbelievable!”, he said on BBC Sounds’ The Footballer’s Football Podcast.
Strikers like Erling Haaland will always miss easy chances
Being a striker himself, Michail Antonio must be aware of how it feels like to miss a sitter like Erling Haaland did against Erik ten Hag’s side.
Before his hat-trick against Chelsea in the 2018/2019 season, Sergio Aguero fluffed his lines in front of a gaping goal in what was arguably a worse miss than Erling Haaland’s.
Considering strikers are in such positions so frequently, at times, they tend not to get the job done and every goalscorer who goes on to play the game in years to come will also do the same.
What is key for a striker is to get in those positions to be rightly placed to put the ball in the back of the net, which is less common than one thinks.
