Erling Haaland hints at joy of simplicity as Man City embrace tactical conundrum

The Norwegian forward was unveiled by City on Sunday with Pep Guardiola hopeful he can be the missing piece to land the Champions League

(Manchester City FC via Getty Ima)

A couple of Norway flags gleamed in the Manchester sun. In front of the stage where the new signings were paraded, a Norwegian’s sky blue shirt was held aloft. “Haaland 15,” it read. The shirt was a couple of decades old and Alf Inge Haaland, who turns 50 in November, was there to see it.

It was outnumbered, however, by a newer kit, with his surname on it, but the No 9. Without even making his debut, Erling Haaland’s fan club already appears rather larger than his father’s ever was during his 47 games as a defensive midfielder.

And if it prompted questions if the lone loyalist from the early 2000s also has tops celebrating Gerard Wiekens, Richard Edghill or Spencer Prior, a tale of two Haalands illustrated the difference a generation has made at City. An unglamorous workhorse got relegated. A goal machine has rather higher aims.

It is not merely the inflation of transfer fees that meant one Haaland cost £2.5 million and the other feels a bargain at £51 million. The rapturous reception reflected his status as, along with Kylian Mbappe, the most coveted young forward in world football.

As a record of 115 goals in 116 outings for his last two clubs, Red Bull Salzburg and Borussia Dortmund, showed Haaland tends to be a crowd-pleaser on the pitch. Perhaps the surprise, after some of his monosyllabic interviews at his previous clubs, were his attempts to be one off the field, too. At his unveiling, he geed the crowd gathered outside the Etihad Stadium up in chants of “City.” He supplied answers that came with a guarantee of popularity. Asked which game he was most looking forward to, he replied: “I don’t like to say the word but… United.”

Manchester City's Erling Haaland is cheered by fans (AP)

He appears Sergio Aguero’s belated successor and revealed he has one of the Argentinian’s shirts at home. “He is a legend, one of the best ever to play in the Premier League,” he elaborated. “I remember a lot of goals he scored, especially the 93:20 goal.” That required no explanation for any City supporter.

Haaland was smiling but guarded, ticking the right boxes without talking himself into trouble. A player who can average a goal a game did not set himself a target. He has been paying particular attention to City since Pep Guardiola took charge in 2016, but kept the contents of their discussions quiet.

He accepted the description of himself as a City fan, mentioning he was born in England without specifying it was actually in Leeds. He is already at the fifth club of a career where every move has been a step upwards but stopped short of committing himself to his new employers for all of his peak seasons. “I signed a five-year deal so we have to start there,” he said.

There were hints of ambition, glimpses of confidence. His goals so far have only yielded two Austrian titles, plus a cup apiece in Austria and Germany. He can feel pangs of jealousy when others lift the major prizes. “Sometimes I look at someone posing with the trophy and I think: ‘I would love to be you right now,’” he said. There was no disguising that his dream is to win the Champions League. He has already finished a season as its top scorer, in 2020-21, with Dortmund.

(Manchester City FC via Getty Ima)

City nevertheless eliminated them that year; if their shortcoming was an inability to score in the 2021 final defeat to Chelsea, they kept their new recruit quiet in both legs of the quarter-final.

Possession, he explained, was the best form of defence as he experienced the difficulties of facing City. “You see something on TV and then when you meet it is completely different,” Haaland said. “I didn’t touch the ball for 25 minutes and it is like: ‘[Ilkay] Gundogan, please stop playing tiki-taka.’ It is a different level how they play and that is what I want to be a part of.”

And yet he has not been hired to be part of it; not as another passer. He is the specialist finisher for the team who won successive Premier Leagues with a false nine; or, to be more precise, a coterie of them.

Last season, the creator-in-chief Kevin de Bruyne got a mere eight assists as he instead took on the mantle of the top scorer. “I hope for him he will get more assists this season,” said the likely beneficiary of the Belgian’s supply line.

His arrival poses tactical conundrums for Guardiola, a man with a famously large number of theories and an occasional propensity to plump for the wrong one.

Haaland, his sunny demeanour to the fore, said five times his aim was just to enjoy himself. He rationalised: “Overthinking is not a good thing for every human being.”

It may be advice Guardiola should heed, but he almost certainly won’t.