WHAT chance is there of Erling Haaland being struck down by a case of ‘second-season syndrome’?
On the eve of the Premier League’s big kick-off, that is the wishful thinking of Manchester City’s potential title rivals as Pep Guardiola’s men bid to become the first team to be crowned champions of England for four consecutive seasons.
Because if Haaland keeps on doing Haaland things — and in his maiden campaign at the Etihad, he netted 35 league goals in 32 appearances — there is surely no hope for the chasing pack.
City already boasted the strongest squad and the most inventive manager in the top flight before last summer but after they added the finest young finisher in world football, the Treble was theirs.
Tomorrow night, Haaland heads to Burnley — no longer the ‘trip to the dentist’ Guardiola regarded it during Sean Dyche’s reign — having flopped in Sunday’s Community Shield, just as he did in the corresponding fixture last year.
Yet he scored both of City’s goals on his Premier League debut at West Ham the following weekend and, by the end of August, he had already netted back-to-back hat-tricks.
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Haaland ended City’s all-conquering campaign with his longest barren run in club football since he was a teenager at Molde in 2018 — yet he collected three major trophies during that five-match drought.
The mighty Norseman is well liked by his City team-mates but on the training ground and especially during matches, his attitude is described by one team-mate as “chilling”.
It is not usually difficult to ascertain the form of a striker by his mood in training — when they are banging in the goals they are all smiles but, if they are going through a drought, they tend to be irritable or downright angry.
But 23-year-old Haaland is different.
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His colleagues will tell you that whether he’s netted a hat-trick or fired a rare blank in his previous match, the Norwegian never shows it.
While there have been suggestions that Guardiola’s team might lack prime motivation levels having secured the Treble, nobody at City believes 6ft 5in Haaland will ease up.
He has so many obvious physical attributes — pace, strength, ball-striking — but it is the evenness of his temperament which team-mates believe sets him apart.
And none of City’s major rivals go into the new campaign with a settled first-choice centre-forward able to rival him.
Arsenal — for all their impressive summer business and the confidence from their Community Shield victory — do not possess an elite goalscorer.
Gabriel Jesus was rarely employed as a No 9 by Guardiola at City, even when the Etihad boss did not have an authentic centre-forward.
The Brazilian, 26, will miss the start of Arsenal’s campaign with a knee injury and Kai Havertz, who led the line at Wembley on Sunday, squandered a couple of excellent chances.
Havertz is an intelligent player with a satin touch but he is no goal machine — netting 19 times in 91 Premier League appearances for Chelsea.
The 24-year-old German was Chelsea’s top scorer with just seven last term and no Blues player has scored more than 16 in a league season since Diego Costa six years ago.
Of this summer’s new recruits, Christopher Nkunku, 25, is already facing a lengthy lay-off after knee surgery, leaving 22-year-old Nicolas Jackson — with 12 goals for Villarreal last season — as Mauricio Pochettino’s attacking spearhead.
Manchester United have spent £72million on 20-year-old Danish striker Rasmus Hojlund, who scored just nine Serie A goals for Atalanta last season.
That may be an upgrade on Wout Weghorst but Erik ten Hag’s men — having refused to make a move for Harry Kane — will be over-reliant on the goals of Marcus Rashford cutting in from the left.
Newcastle have two decent centre- forward options in Callum Wilson and Alexander Isak.
But Eddie Howe has been unsure which man to deploy down the middle, with Swede Isak, 23, often used out wide.
With a goal every 105 minutes, 31-year-old Wilson came closer than any other top-flight player to Haaland’s strike rate of one every 77 minutes but Isak is expected to take over as Howe’s first-choice centre-forward. Liverpool’s problems are largely in defence and midfield, with Jurgen Klopp boasting a potent clutch of forwards.
Mo Salah is a three-time Golden Boot winner but the 31-year-old Egyptian went through the least impressive of his six seasons at Anfield last term.
Klopp needs a big season from Darwin Nunez, 24, the Uruguayan who netted nine times in his maiden Premier League campaign.
Kane, 30, is the only other genuine world-class centre-forward in the Premier League but he may leave Tottenham for Bayern Munich.
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Even when he bagged 30 goals last season, Spurs finished a distant eighth in the title race.
So perhaps the best hope for City’s rivals is that Haaland might suffer a lengthy layoff — at which point Guardiola will call for 23-year-old Julian Alvarez, the first-choice centre-forward for world champions Argentina…
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
