Erling Haaland
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fergus90
Senior Member
I agree he?s not as clinical but I definitely think he?s deprived of decent service most weeks. Especially without Sancho now. Dortmund?s decision making in the final third in general is pretty poor.
One thing is for certain, if he doesn’t get service he cuts quite an isolated figure and is pretty quiet. I’m not sure any club would be wise to pay a penny over his release clause. Said it before but anything over that is OTT.
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So does that make him the next....Lukaku?
(JK, Haaland is one of the two best talents at the moment, that's very clear)
That said, jokes aside, Lukaku was also an extremely promising talent that relied on service entirely, and still has my respect as one of the top strikers in the game, I mean it
This transfer is different to say Ronaldo from United or Bale from Spurs.
Haaland despite showing a lot so far, still has question marks. I'd rather compare him to Ajax versions of de Ligt and Frenkie in terms of status, which is also why I don't think we should pay more than 75m.
If we miss out on him it's not the end of the world. We shouldn't blow our budget by selling our own grandmother or take unnecessary risks like we did with Griezmann.
Haaland despite showing a lot so far, still has question marks. I'd rather compare him to Ajax versions of de Ligt and Frenkie in terms of status, which is also why I don't think we should pay more than 75m.
If we miss out on him it's not the end of the world. We shouldn't blow our budget by selling our own grandmother or take unnecessary risks like we did with Griezmann.
Wage demands and bonuses, dealing with Raiola and Haalands father are bigger dealbreakers than the tranfer fee imo.
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Yes, it's a combination of it. Still has a lot to prove which is also why he shouldn't be treated like he's been Premier League's best player during the past few years.
All money involved must be reasonable. If Raiola and Alf-Inge are egoistically trying to milk money for themselves through a bidding war then we should pleasantly tell them to fuck off.
Messi983
Senior Member
We have played direct football with Lucho, we have also done that to great extent with EV and many times under Rijkaard.
So why not? We don't have the midfielders for a possession based game plan. Only one we have atm who suits that is Busquets and he is almost 33 and maybe Pedri.
FDJ & Illaix for example aren't suited for heavy possession gameplan.
Actually when you say that, you make me think we better ditch it even without Halaand
The game at the moment is more about speed and directness, I think Halaand suits both.
Not as an all time great IMo, I said before I see him as a top 10 players that will be paid like top 3, but goal scorers are hard to come by and you have to build around one.
Not only FDJ and Ilaix, I think Ansu and Dembele (if he stays) would also benefit a lot playing more direct. With or without Haaland. We shouldn't stick to tiki-taka at all costs just because we've had success with it while having two of the all time great midfielders in that team. I'm not saying we should totally ditch possession based football but I'd be willing to give some of that away to become more unpredictable and add another dimension to our game. When Messi will leave we'll lose those moments when he can do something out of nothing but at the same time when not 90% of our attacks will have to go through him anymore we'll have a chance to make our attack more diverse not only depending on one player. And having Ansu and Haaland upfront would allow us to do that but we should set the team up to fit their strengths as much as we can. If sacrificing 5-10% possession in some games would make us more dangerous and likely to score from fast breaks I'd take that. Wouldn't see this as "going away from our roots/philosophy" or whatever hardcore Cruyffistas would think but rather adapting to modern football. We should accept the fact we can't reproduce what we did in 2008-11 with clearly inferior (both in general and especially for that style of football) players. I just hope when Xavi will sit on our bench he'll be smart enough to realise that soon enough.
malvolio
Senior Member
neymar to barcelona 2.0
what's the worst that can happen? we declare a smaller transfer fee and we pay the fine
job done.unfortunately for haaland, neymar was more talented and proven. so the circus was kind of warranted.
Fati_Future_BallonDor
Well-known member
Forgot how to score
Messi983
Senior Member
True.
Another thing I "fear" with Haaland is that if we get him now he'll never stay here for 6-8 years during his prime but probably want to leave and play in the EPL one day, maybe in 3-4 years. Even then I think he's worth a risk and a big investment. As long as he can do what he does the best and help us win trophies during this early rebuild phase and then in transition period after Messi leaves. And if he'll want to leave at 26-27 then so be it as long as we can get at least what we've paid for him (and re-invest that money in whoever "the next big thing" will be at that time). Realistically we should sell him for profit considering he'd be a better, more proven player at that point but we have no clue how market will look like in 5 years.
I have zero evidence why he wouldn't want to stay if he'd become "face of the team" after Messi leaves, be paid like one and hopefully win trophies but just my gut feeling he won't stay at one club during his prime years. Especially not with an agent like Raiola. And history also shows us that foreign players (not brought through La Masia so Messi is obviously excluded here) have rarely stayed at the club longer than 4-5 years regardless of how good and important they were for the team.
OTOH I think Mbappe could be more committed to the club he'll go next (probably RM) and stay there longterm so from that viewpoint could possibly make more sense going after him. I could be totally wrong though.
Messi983
Senior Member
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