Thierry Henry has said that Erling Haaland deserves praise for other areas of his game rather than focusing on his goalscoring ability.
The striker had a storming debut season at the Etihad Stadium last summer by scoring 52 goals in 53 appearances in all competitions.
Despite failing to find the net in some of City’s final games of the previous campaign, as well as not scoring in his last two appearances against Sevilla and Newcastle United, one former Premier League star, who was no stranger to scoring goals, has shared his assessment on the Norwegian.
Henry drops Haaland verdict
Speaking in a recent episode of the Seaman Says podcast, Henry had this to say about Haaland.
He said: “Haaland is Haaland, he said it himself. I don’t know if you saw it we did something with CBS where I talked to him and at the end he said his game changed at one point.
“He holds the ball a bit better but mainly he’s a box player. So you’re not going to ask him to go on the left or the right but I myself thought at the beginning of the season that he could do more and he did towards the end.
“I’m not talking about his goals and by the way, have a look, he didn’t score against Real Madrid, he didn’t score against Inter Milan, he didn’t score the other day against Sevilla, he didn’t score in the final of the [FA] Cup, but he played well, held up, assist, put people through.
“Now you see how he comes in midfield and play, the 10 can make a run. Those are the things that people don’t notice, I value that too.
“Now go and score your 60 plus goals that he will score because that will come naturally, especially if you play for City by the way and him it’s a lethal combo, they create, he kills.
“Now to win trebles and to win titles, you have to give us a bit more off the ball also, and that’s what he did. And people did not notice that, he didn’t score in those games but he played very well. Pressing was on point, holding the ball was on point, linking the game was on point.”
Given the incredible goalscoring efforts Haaland showed last season, it’s easy to focus on this side of his game, especially when he goes through a period without scoring as he did towards the end of the previous campaign.
However, with Henry highlighting other parts of Haaland’s game that he does well, this shows that there is more to him than just scoring goals and that he has other areas he can improve on to make him a more well-rounded and overall better player.
Moving forward, if the 23-year-old, who City paid £51m to sign last summer, can work on the aspects that Henry mentioned and keep scoring goals on a regular basis, he’ll not only give City a great chance of regaining their titles from last season, he’ll also become more efficient across the pitch.
