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worthy of its own thread
why the fuck aren’t we playing to his strengths?

He’s making brilliant runs and our players are just going sideways and backwards.

One obvious occasion last night where Gundo could have played him in, saw him, and chose not to bother.

Genuinely don’t think he was a Pep signing. The fact that Pep said only last week he needs Haaland to be “more like Kane” is embarrassing.

Mase wrote:The fact that Pep said only last week he needs Haaland to be “more like Kane” is embarrassing.

To be honest, 8 out of 10 things that come out Pep's mouth are stupid and do us more harm than good.
From criticize the fans, to that Kane nonsense.

Haaland has developed a really bad habit of running behind defenders. I think his intention is to burst forward into the space, but it’s making him look like he’s choosing to hide. Also, every time we get to the by line he runs to the back of the goal behind the defender.

Aguero used to attack the front post so often and I don’t see Haaland do that.

Who am I to judge though? It’s just my observation.

Álvarez needs to play with haaland but there is no way on this earth that pep will give this paring a fighting chance to cement itself .

He likes to fuck around with the team on a week to week basis - defense included .

His post match análisis differs from most City fans opinions - if he thinks we played great and there was no reason to make any subs then the guy is starting to lose his marbles .

If that game had gone on longer we would probably have lost it .

london blue 2 wrote:Haaland has developed a really bad habit of running behind defenders. I think his intention is to burst forward into the space, but it’s making him look like he’s choosing to hide. Also, every time we get to the by line he runs to the back of the goal behind the defender.

Aguero used to attack the front post so often and I don’t see Haaland do that.

Who am I to judge though? It’s just my observation.

Your a fan - you have every right to judge the team .

london blue 2 wrote:Haaland has developed a really bad habit of running behind defenders. I think his intention is to burst forward into the space, but it’s making him look like he’s choosing to hide. Also, every time we get to the by line he runs to the back of the goal behind the defender.

Aguero used to attack the front post so often and I don’t see Haaland do that.

Who am I to judge though? It’s just my observation.

I agree with this. His goals tally is the best, so for me it’s not the drama it is for some.

Beats the fuck out of me how we can have one if not the, worlds best strikers and continue to not play to his strengths. Give him the fucking ball every time he makes the run in behind and we are out of sight in most games. Nah fuck it, let's go back to the defence instead. Fucking madness

Is there some disharmony amongst the players? It’s almost like it it isn’t even an option. Even a long ball out of defence to him isn’t ever considered. I must shout at the fucking telly 100 times Haaland when we have the ball We have a 6’5” rapid proven goal scoring machine in the centre of our attack and either go sideways or backwards. Surely when the players/coaching staff go over the videos of the game it screams out to them too. Get the fucking ball to Haaland

Get Phil back in the team get him back playing well. At the start of the season the two of them had a great understanding.
Or try Alvarez with him.

Instead we've been concentrating on putting silva at left back!!!

Time for Pep to get the best out of his best players and stop dicking about with nonsense tactics.

sheblue wrote:Get Phil back in the team get him back playing well. At the start of the season the two of them had a great understanding.

I’m afraid you have a short memory. Phil chose to ignore a few simple passes to Haaland at the beginning of the season.

Agree with all. Worried

london blue 2 wrote:

sheblue wrote:Get Phil back in the team get him back playing well. At the start of the season the two of them had a great understanding.

I’m afraid you have a short memory. Phil chose to ignore a few simple passes to Haaland at the beginning of the season.

...........and last week at Forest. Key moment in the game as it turned out

Last night Haaland made lots of good runs, as he does most games. He's constantly ignored as we always pass back or wide. One for Pep I would say - sort it out!

Haaland pre & post WC PL record: games played/scored in/blanked in/number of goals 13/9/4/18 &. 10/5/5/8
Per match scoring rate has dropped from 70% to 50% and goal ratio per game has dropped from 1.4 to 0.8

IMO that drop off is down to style of play and lack of killer passes.
Style of play is down to Pep and lack of killer passes could be down to Pep's instructions or the players themselves.
Pep's vision for City with Haaland - nobody knows.
I think it is certain he does not want to build everything around Haaland and that makes sense. It would be very predictable to defend against particularly for the top teams, we are lacking wingers and pace, what happens if Haaland gets injured, etc...
Pep may want Haaland to drop deep opening up spaces, providing assists - who knows?

I think we need to remember that playing Haaland and trying to utilize him is a massive change for City.
Remember Pep's first season? It took the full season to get the team playing the Pep way.
Transitions can be painful and they take time.

On top of the transition, it is turning out to be a very strange season for City and the PL on a number of fronts:

Is there something amiss with the City squad? Cancelo, Foden, strange team selections, etc...?
A lot of those City players have been on the road a long time, have nothing to prove and hitting 30.
The 100 odd charges brought by the PL against City. Does that affect player motivation? Does the unfair treatment from officials sap morale?
The outrageous VAR calls consistently going MU and Liverpool's way, not even subtle anymore.
Liverpool and MU up for sale, mid-season and both sales running in parallel
Qatar, noted for brown envelopes and animosity with the UAE, sniffing around MU

I have a suspicion that Pep has been playing the long game this season due to the WC and fixture congestion.
Planning to get tactics sorted and player freshness and fitness peaking for season's end.

Nothing would surprise me this season, it could be a total collapse or a CL and PL double.
It is that type of season.

Haaland just needs to found with a quicker supply. Most can see that we have often slow our attack by our players holding onto possession and cutting in sideways or passing backwards. Mahrez is the chief culprit. Grealish is getting better but is does the same and more often than not he gets clattered in possession and the subsequent freekick is easy to defend

A real conundrum this.

On the one hand we have wanted a striker since Aguero left a couple of years ago and we now have one of, if not the most prolific striker in world football.

On the other hand we are still playing largely the same way we have done for the last few years and it is becoming apparent we aren’t necessarily playing to Haalands strengths.

Do we adapt the way we as a team play or should the forward adjust his game? There are rationales for both. But there is a big argument to say why buy a player to then ask him to change the way he plays? Is he a signing that was really wanted by Pep or was he a statement signing and one who if we sell in a couple of years we will turn an extremely handsome profit?

It isn’t as if Haaland isn’t scoring goals. He is. Lots of them. Breaking lots of records. But his scoring rate is slowing. Teams are working out if you stop KBD you stop a lot of his service as he seems to be our only midfielder who either has licence to try something out of the ordinary or the skills to do it. I suspect it’s the first option. We’ve all seen what the likes of Grealish Mahrez Silva Foden can do when they aren’t afraid to lose possession.

I am starting to wonder if our system and thus Pep by default, is actually the issue. Our possession based style of football has brought unparalleled success domestically for a good 5 years. But, is it sustainable indefinitely? Have teams worked us out? We see very teams now try to play football against us, most times it’s stick 7/8 men behind the ball and try to hit us the counter.

We actually have two brilliant strikers, Haaland and Alvarez. And we don’t get the best out of either. I was hoping earlier this season when Pep said he had a new system in mind he was going to go back to 442. Not this awful 3 at the back which supposedly releases another player into midfield. Which in reality just slows the pace of the game down which isn’t advantageous for us a lot of the time.

Now just for a horrifying moment imagine the rags had Haaland instead of Martial or Weghorst. Do you think they would get more out of Haaland? Or the dippers with him instead of Nunez or Gapko? And I for one think they would.

As another poster, I think Londonblue(?) noted, Haaland rarely makes a near post run. Maybe because our wide men rarely get to the by line to put in a cross in. Maybe if we played two up front they could alternate who goes forward/back, who goes near/far post, who stays central/goes wide into the channel etc. Give the opposition defence something to think about

Maybe this season is all about getting used to having a striker again? I don’t know. But the way we are shaping in 2023 we won’t be needing the Brasso over the summer and for my money, this could/should be our defining season

The thing is, we played to Haaland’s strengths a few times this season - and it’s worked. Rags at home being the main one. Fast attacking football.

It’s like Pep saw that work and decided, “nah, that’s too easy” and has gone back to sideways and backwards. Slow build up.

When we’ve played to Haaland’s strengths it’s more than worked.

nottsblue wrote:A real conundrum this.

...

Now just for a horrifying moment imagine the rags had Haaland instead of Martial or Weghorst. Do you think they would get more out of Haaland? Or the dippers with him instead of Nunez or Gapko? And I for one think they would.

...

The stuff of nightmares.
Both MU and Liverpool would adapt their game to suit Haaland's style of play.
They are both kick and rush breakaway merchants anyway imo.
Both would be lumping the ball at Haaland every chance they get.
Just look at the amount of gilt edged chances Nunez gets and misses.

Haaland would score a lot more goals with either of those two than he is with us.

Haaland doing everything right. Makes thought out explosive runs but nobody passes, constantly the first to wave the rest to push up out of defence but nobody follows. We don't need to change our game to suit him, he plays exactly like pep wants. The lack of passes is down to the rest not playing to their standard. The lack of pushing up and pressing also. Put haaland in our centurion team and we wouldn't be having this conversation. The rest of the squad by and large have slacked off.

Pep wanting 70% possession might limit the opposition but it also hinders our own attacking threat. If we played in a game with 50% possession and had a ding dong type battle we'd be far better off and Haaland would have 40 goals this season already. We are a joke going forward lately just for the sake of possession we are passing backwards 8 out of 10 passes. No one is gambling on that through ball incase we give it away and Pep has a hissy fit. KDB is the only one playing the passes Haaland thrives on.