Erling Haaland, system-based teams and the role of the goalscorer | Jonathan Wilson

Great strikers win games and yet they can disrupt tactical systems where dominating the ball is crucial – just like at City

Erling Haaland is a phenomenon. It’s not just that he has scored 22 goals already this season, plus a further five goals in the Champions League. It’s the sense he offers of being unstoppable: almost unbeatable for pace, almost impossible to knock off the ball and with a clinical eye for goal as well.

His phlegmatic, almost flippant, personality makes him more terrifying. He jokes about the secret target he has set himself for this season. He is not some driven self-improver: he scores goals in record-breaking numbers seemingly because he finds it funny. He plays football like the early developer in year eight and as such finds the game almost laughably easy. In the history of the sport there has been only a tiny handful of forwards who have combined such physical and technical prowess.

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