Johnny Nicholson: Haaland’s influence on City more complex than may appear
FOCAL POINT: Manchester City's Erling Haaland celebrates scoring their side's first goal of the game during the Premier League match at the Etihad Stadium.
Erling Haaland scored his fourth hat-trick of the season against Wolves, of course he did, and it dismissed any doubts about his or City’s form, after recent less than stellar performances. That’s 25 in 19 league games and 31 in 25 games in all competitions. The question City have to wrestle with is whether Haaland is really an asset or just someone who scores all the goals that others would have scored anyway. It might seem counter intuitive to think that someone with so many goals to their name could be anything other than an advantage, but before the Wolves game, City had scored 50 goals and conceded 20; across the whole of last season they netted 99 and conceded 26. Haaland and all his goals has barely changed the team’s goals per game and appears to have had an adverse effect on goals conceded. So perhaps Haaland’s influence on the team is a little more complex than it might initially appear.
The unhappiness is unconfined at Everton these days as the Toffees lost in east London to sink to the bottom of the table, with Arsenal and Liverpool to play next. In normal circumstances fans would be demanding the manager’s head, but whatever Frank Lampard’s flaws are, it is the owner and the board that is getting all the criticism from supporters. It is understandable. Farhad Moshiri et al have run the club amateurishly, without shape, direction or long term planning. They have flushed over half a billion pounds down the toilet with unplanned, random buys, acquired without vision or direction. But what do the fans actually want? A new owner, maybe, a new board of directors, certainly. They're a great old club, bigger than most, but not big enough to compete with the elite teams anymore, the way they once did 35 years ago. It seems like the fans are saying, can we just be run a bit better? It’s not unreasonable to want your club to be run competently, but it is hardly the stuff of revolutions and it won’t turn Everton into an elite side capable of winning anything. Moshiri may try to sell the club to someone with a lot of money to lose, but that is far easier said than done. It’s certainly an unusual situation to have fans protesting at the quality of the board members. Maybe relegation would be a blessing as it would reduce the value of the club markedly and allow a new owner to come in with a new board and rebuild the club properly. The fear of relegation is often overstated and feared too much. A forest fire clears out all the old dead wood, lets in more light and allows new growth to come through. As in nature, so also in football.
Chelsea’s third consecutive 0-0 against Liverpool sparked into life with the introduction of 22-year-old new signing, Mykhailo Mudryk. With just 65 games under his belt, the Ukraine international has cost up to £89 million but it’ll be worth it if this is the standard he’s going to play at. He is one of the fastest players in the league, right up there with Kyle Walker. At one point he gave James Milner about a 10 yard start, knocked the ball past him and accelerated onto it with consummate ease, only to be brought down by the 35-year-old. It was the sort of injection of excitement that all fans love. Before he arrived on the pitch, Chelsea were their usual rather clunky, boring selves, though they did have a Kai Havertz goal ruled out for offside. Mudryk is exactly what they need; pace, energy and the fearlessness of youth. Now if they can find a central striker to capitalise on Mudryk’s high-speed running and craft down the left, they may begin to look far more dangerous. Certainly, for the last 20 minutes at Anfield with Graham Potter switching to what looked like an adventurous 4-2-4 they looked much more threatening.
It might have been Jurgen Klopp’s 1000th game as a manager but his team is no nearer finding any sort of form. Nothing seems to be working right now. They struggled to get a shot on target managing just three while missing with 12. New man Cody Gakpo has yet to score, has not done enough to impress and squandered a couple of half chances against Chelsea. Darwen Nunez came on after 63 minutes and continued to run like a hare but achieved little and the midfield looked heavy legged and lacked creativity. They might be happy to get away with a point against Chelsea and stay in eighth but Klopp needs to reshape his team and come up with some alternative tactical solutions. He has a squad of excellent players but just sticking with his usual set-up and hoping it somehow comes right is looking a little optimistic right now. They need something radical, either in terms of tactical set up or perhaps with a shock transfer to disrupt this rut they’re in. The thrilling counter attacking team has somehow evaporated. Injuries to Diogo Jota and Luis Diaz haven’t helped but they must strengthen the midfield and put some grit and some speed into it. If they don't, it's hard to see things getting markedly better. This is now the Reds' worst half a season under Klopp.
In the end it was an easy win for West Ham over the league's worst team and one that will take the pressure off the manager for now. It was well deserved, they were the better side with much better players, though for the first half hour they were not really superior to Everton and seemed inhibited and edgy. It took Jarred Bowen’s first goal to settle the team and the crowd down, a crowd that had been rather subdued. But the goal relaxed everyone and after that they were never in doubt as winners. Quite how big an achievement beating Everton is, is open to question, of course. Although it was the Hammers first win since late October, until they play better sides, it’s hard to know if they’ve turned a corner and will move up the table or not. Their next three games are against Newcastle, Chelsea and Tottenham. If they lose all three, which is far from unlikely, they may be back to square one. But with an away game at Derby in the FA Cup up next, it's a chance to notch another win and further rebuild confidence.
Their win at Southampton was the third consecutive away win for Unai Emery’s team and their fifth win out of the last seven league games. It puts them in a comfortable 11th and just three points adrift of the European places. Things couldn’t have gone much better for the new manager. Though defeat to Stevenage in the FA Cup was poor, they are able to concentrate on the league for the rest of the season. He’s acquired Jhon Duran, a striker from the USA after selling Danny Ings to West Ham. That was a brave move, the Ings/Olly Watkins partnership always looked promising, but never clicked for long, so better to try something new. He’s also bolstered the defence by signing left back Alex Moreno from Real Betis. Getting into Europe would be an excellent revival of fortunes after such a poor start and exactly where Emery would want to be next season, given his previous phenomenal performance in the Europa League, winning four out of five finals.
Amazingly it November 6 since Newcastle last conceded a goal. They have an astonishing miserly defence, the best in the league, having let in just 11, three less than Arsenal, nine less than Manchester City and 11 less than Manchester United. A great defence is the base from which to build a title challenge but for that, they need some guaranteed goals. Miguel Almirón has nine, decent, but no-one’s idea of a title-winning striker. Callum Wilson has six and despite his England call--up for the World Cup, is not a striker to build a tilt at the top with, not least because he appears to be made of biscuits. Expect a massive dump of bloody cash for a top striker or two this summer.
Leeds usually play an intoxicating brand of thrash metal football which basically involves everyone running very fast all the time, with or without the ball. It is breathlessly reckless, the very antithesis of cautious or pragmatic football and tremendous entertainment. But Brentford managed to tame them Sunday with a solid defensive display which neutralised their attacking prowess, despite playing in a terrible strip which looked like Poundland children’s pyjamas. They’re clearly full of confidence after an excellent first half of the season and took on the always noisy Elland Road challenge without intimidation. Leeds knocked at the door, with six shots at goal to Brentford’s zero but it was a tight game with few genuine chances. The draw leaves Leeds a point above the relegation places, despite not looking anything like relegation fodder.
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