Larry Ryan: Ox in the box an antidote to our age of expecting everything but goals
How does that sound? Erling Haaland of Manchester City FC celebrates after scoring his team's first goal during the UEFA Champions League group G match between Sevilla FC and Manchester City. Pic: David Ramos/Getty Images
As we know, the big man up top has been an endangered species for many years. And the fox in the box has been on borrowed time too. So is it any wonder Erling Haaland causes such consternation and bemusement across the football world? A high-speed ox in the box.
Of course Erling looks like a different species out there, an action hero who gets the job done efficiently instead of padding out an hour and a half with a load of unnecessary chase scenes.
Rory Smith’s new book arrived this week, the “story of how data conquered football”. I’m going to jump the gun before reading it and ask if it’s any coincidence that the rise of stats coincided with the decline of the dedicated goalscorer. That with so much new stuff to measure, the forest became a little bit obscured by the trees. Because we expected more than goals, the goalscorer was almost engineered out of the game.
Despite his glut of goals, Haaland is still regarded as a bit of an inconvenience to Pep Guardiola, who has to abandon all he holds sacred in order to accommodate this geezer who keeps giving away possession by knocking the ball into the goal.
This week Borussia Dortmund sporting director Sebastian Kehl was telling us his boys have been set free now they no longer have to carry this “burden”. “The fact that our first 10 goals this season have been scored by 10 different players proves it.” Or maybe it just took them longer to get to 10 than it should.
“Haaland is not special. (Julian) Alvarez is more of a player than Haaland, qualitatively he is stronger,” sniffed Antonio Cassano too, a one in four striker throughout his career.
And if you look at most of Haaland’s stats this season, they are certainly nothing special. He’s in the bottom 20% of strikers across Europe for ‘pressures’, interceptions and dribbles completed, and in the bottom 1% for tackles. 62% of strikers have attempted more passes.
But there is that one category where the big man looks pretty special. So far this season his actual goals are 100% higher than his expected goals. So were we expecting too much of the frontmen or too little?
It might not be the best thing that ever happened to golf, but hasn’t this LIV caper been a Godsend for golfers?
Obviously, for those who have defected, there is the great bonus of more millions and less golf. Sure, there could be the odd pang of conscience to overcome, but not many of these lads will have been in the habit of seeking a character reference before cashing a cheque.
And for the ‘good guys’, staying put to preserve the sanctity of that grand old romantic institution, the PGA Tour, at least they now have something to talk about, beyond the golf.
As we well know, in our everyday lives as much as in the sports media, there is not much worse than listening to golfers talking about their round of golf. Can the heart sink lower than on hearing an enthusiastic debrief start with a difficult approach to the first?
But now all these lads have been set free to entertain us with colourful accounts of how much they despise their old pals on the other side of this great split.
There are moments of superb unintentional comedy, such as Graeme McDowell and his pleas to put the exclusion of the LIV contingent to a vote. Of all times to gain an appreciation of democracy.
But mainly we are now beginning to mix all the ingredients that made the Premier League great.
Poults is dabbling in classic Davy Fitz/Jose Mourinho ‘I prefer not to speak’ territory.
“There’s been a lot of petty comments in the last few weeks and I’m not going to comment on them. I’m not going to play the clickbait game. I’m just not playing it,” he insisted, going viral again.
Rory McIlroy has been given a new lease of life, freed from explaining how he’s going to try harder/try less hard in order to win his next major, he might now win one without even thinking about it.
Rory may even be pioneering the unsteady rise of golf bantz, remarking, ahead of Wentworth this week, that the LIV lads would have been tired on day four, on account of them only playing 54 holes these days.
Well, it’s a start.
Even more promisingly, Shane Lowry is lowering the blade on old friends. “There are certain lads I would shake hands with and certain lads I wouldn't."
That could yet be the final piece of the jigsaw for the PGA Tour — its first handshake controvassy.
There are many reasons for missing the great Liam Mackey from these pages. And somewhere among them is not finding out what Liam would make of his beloved VAR these days. In fairness, he was in Saint Denis on the night of the great theft, so carried deeper scars than the rest of us. And so was he ready to trust everything to the machines.
Some of us tried to persuade him they would let him down, but his faith in the inevitability of justice was touching. It's men like Liamo they have betrayed, with their shambolic efforts.
They’ll have to get rid of it soon, I’m thinking now, or restrict it to the fundamentals, like toenail offsides and goalline tech, which might even be creaking too.
They never gave it a chance really, with their lack of what some call joined-up thinking.
The latest muddle that finished VAR as a credible contributor was this season’s ‘let it flow’ policy. On one hand you have a ref in a box with the facilities to see everything, on the other you have a ref on the pitch encouraged to turn a blind eye.
A dangerous combination when you already have so many conspiracy theorists convinced the VAR only sees what it wants to see.
Aside from the vicissitudes visited on us by VAR, do you ever reflect on the great peace of mind enjoyed by lovers of association football?
Sure, there are those who get agitated when they see a keeper playing a few one-twos with his centre halves before eventually launching it up the pitch anyway. But are we forever demanding rule changes? Do we insist that goal kicks should go over the halfway line? Do we dream up an ‘advanced mark’, to give the striker a penalty if the keeper lands one on his noggin?
Weren’t we just lamenting, a few weeks ago, the inability of even the top top gaffers to cope once supplies were shut off of their one key ingredient — players running around? And sure enough, Kloppo is the latest to be enveloped by crisis, with no Plan B for this one.
I suppose it’s tricky to get involved in negotiations on this crucial matter. But could himself or Mr Intensity Lijnders not look around the dressing room some days, remember James Milner is marshalling the engine room, and give a little: “Alright, I can see yisser not in the humour today, lads. We’ll knock the old pressing and the high line on the head for one day.”
Jurgen is talking now about the need to reinvent themselves, but really he’s figuring out some ruse to make them run again.
