CNN
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After two seasons, Premier League defenses are still grappling with the same question: how do you stop Erling Haaland?
The Norwegian striker has scored at a phenomenal rate since joining Manchester City and is shows few signs of slowing down, netting four times in his first two games of the season.
A goal against Chelsea and a hat-trick against Ipswich Town took Haaland’s tally to 67 goals in 68 Premier League appearances, prompting manager Pep Guardiola to reach for lofty comparisons.
“The numbers are ridiculous – he can compete in terms of goals with Cristiano (Ronaldo) and Messi,” Guardiola told reporters after Haaland’s hat-trick last weekend. “The numbers are unbelievable at his age.”
Already, Haaland has become the fastest player to reach 50 Premier League goals, doing so in just 48 games – 17 faster than Andrew Cole’s previous record. Should he once again lead the league in scoring this season, then he would be the first player since Thierry Henry in 2006 to win three consecutive Golden Boot awards.
Former England striker Gary Lineker sees all the attributes of “an old-school center forward” when he watches Haaland, both in terms of the 23-year-old’s physicality and ability to score goals.
“He’s got that all-round combination of: he’s very fast, he’s big, he’s strong. He is very difficult to mark and he’s prolific,” Lineker, a prominent broadcaster with the BBC and host of “The Rest Is Football” podcast, tells CNN Sport.
“He doesn’t worry about missing, which is one of the keys to goalscoring. He misses chances, but to be a really good goalscorer, you have to miss a lot of chances because that means you’re getting a lot of chances and will score if you’re a good finisher, which he is.”
Haaland will be back on the pitch for Manchester City’s Premier League game against West Ham on Saturday. The club has won two Premier League titles, the Champions League and the FA Cup since his arrival, while further trophies seem an inevitability.
Remarkable scoring records for RB Leipzig and then Borussia Dortmund saw Haaland establish himself as one of the best strikers in Europe, and with City, he has strengthened his case for one day winning the Ballon d’Or as the world’s best male player.
Competition for that honor is always fierce, and Haaland perhaps suffers for not playing in top-level international tournaments with Norway. And away from the Premier League, players like new Real Madrid signing Kylian Mbappé are just as – if not more – potent in attack.
“You can’t really compare Haaland with someone like Mbappé because Mbappé’s obviously a much better all-round footballer,” says Lineker. “Haaland will score more goals because Mbappé, he is a goalscorer, but he plays on the lefthand side and he comes in.
“If you want to compare him with the world’s number nines, most of them are towards the end of their careers now. You’ve got (Barcelona’s Robert) Lewandowski obviously and (Bayern Munich’s) Harry Kane, they’re both in their 30s. Lewandowski, I think, is probably the most similar to Haaland, although Haaland’s much quicker.”
If he can stay fit throughout the season, then Haaland will be central to Man City’s tilt for a seventh Premier League title in eight years – an unprecedented period of dominance for one club.
Lineker, who played in England for Tottenham, Everton and Leicester City in the pre-Premier League era, has been charting City’s success both as host of Match of the Day, the BBC’s long-running highlights show, and also on his podcast, which he regards more as “a group of lads in the pub talking about football.”
This season, Lineker anticipates, will follow a familiar pattern to the past four, and he expects Man City once again to face strong competition from last year’s runner-up Arsenal, which finished just two points off the top spot.
“Obviously, they (City) are incredible,” he says. “They’re a machine in the way they churn out result after result. I think Arsenal will run them very close again, I don’t think there’ll be a lot in it like last season.
“They’re excellent as well and clearly very well managed. So I think if anyone can, it’s Arsenal, but I think City have to be favorites … It takes a brave man to tip against them.”
As for the manager, Guardiola is in the final year of his contract with the Citizens and could leave the club at the end of the year.
After trophy-laden stints at Barcelona and Bayern Munich, the next step in the Spaniard’s coaching career is unclear. A position in international football is a possibility, and Lineker is hoping to nudge Guardiola in one particular direction following Gareth Southgate’s departure from England.
“If he wants to do something different, if he wants to take a bit of time out, let’s hope he’s managing a national team that begins with E,” says Lineker. “That would be quite nice. Bit wishful thinking.”
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