Hard to believe
Haaland’s devastating stats on home debut
In his first Premier League game, Erling Haaland scored a brace. In front of his home crowd, however, he did almost nothing on Saturday. The stats on his home debut are startling.
This is probably not how Erling Haaland (22) imagined his home debut in the sold-out Ethiad Stadium. The Norwegian started the Premier League game against newly promoted Bournemouth but remained pale throughout the game. The number for that? The 60 million new signing from Dortmund only touched the ball eight times. In the 74th minute, coach Pep Guaradiola (51) released him and replaced him with Argentinian Julian Alvarez (22). City won 4-0 in the end.
Even more frightening is Haaland’s passing stats in this game. During his performance, he played just two passes, one of which kicked off the game. His team made a total of 696 passes with the usual “Tiki-Taka” style of play. After all, there was a ray of hope for the 22-year-old. With his second pass, the shooting star made it 1-0 through German Ilkay Gündogan (31).
Pep protects him
The Norwegian ranks third among the players with the fewest touches of the ball. Since the first data collection in the 2003/04 season, only Hameur Bouzazza (6) and Romelu Lukaku (7) have managed fewer touches than Haaland in a Premier League game.
After the game, his coach defended him: “He has the most difficult job in the world. They have three central defenders and three players in front of the central defenders and you are in the middle. How can you survive there?” Guardiola said at the press conference. Nevertheless, the Spaniard is convinced that his new star striker will fit into the city system. “We’ll be playing against a lot of defensive teams but with the quality we have it’s only a matter of time before we find him as a pass.” (mab)
█ █ █ █
|
team |
SP |
TD |
PT |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
|
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
|
3 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
|
4 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
|
5 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
|
6 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
|
7 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
|
8 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
|
9 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
|
10 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
|
11 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
|
12 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
|
13 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
|
14 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
|
15 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
|
16 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
|
17 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
|
18 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
|
19 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
|
20 |
0 |
0 |
0 |