Manchester City striker Erling Haaland recently had another poor performance in the FA Community Shield match against Premier League rivals Arsenal at Wembley on Sunday, 6th August 2023. He was eventually subbed off in the 64th minute after an unconvincing performance.
He was replaced by Cole Palmer, who went on to score just 13 minutes later, but a stoppage-time goal from Leandro Trossard in the 11th minute of stoppage time pulled the Gunners back to a 1-1 draw.
Arsenal then went on to win the game 4-1 on penalties. The question being asked here is, does Haaland disappear in big games? Let’s dive straight in to find out.
Is Haaland a big game player?
In some of the big games Erling Haaland has played in a Manchester City shirt, he hasn’t made as much of an impact. One example is when they played Real Madrid in the Champions League semi-final.
He was undoubtedly the best player in the domestic Premier League, scoring 36 goals and winning the Golden Boot award. However, most of his goals didn’t come while playing against the ‘big six.’
Many of his braces and hat-tricks came against teams like West Ham, Crystal Palace, Brighton, Leicester, Southampton, Leeds United, and Nottingham Forest.
In some of the bigger games, he hardly made an impact and failed even to score one goal. This is the only reason why some fans who have scrutinised every second of Haaland’s performances have said that he is not a big game player.
However, most experts and fans dismiss the claims that he’s not a big game player, and while he may not have bagged braces or hat-tricks against the big clubs, he still had good performances, scoring at least one important goal in many games.
Will Haaland be the top goalscorer again in 2023/24?
The best thing to do to find out if Erling Haaland will be the top goalscorer again this year would be to turn to trusted UK betting sites, such as the official Unibet website, which has the latest and most competitive odds for this year’s Premier League top goalscorer market.
You will see that Haaland is already the odds-on favourite to score more goals in the Premier League than any other player.
He is currently priced at around 7/10 in the UK fractional odds format, meaning he has a whopping 58.80% implied probability rate of achieving this incredible feat for the second consecutive year.
In comparison, Tottenham’s Harry Kane is currently priced at around 7/1 (with only a 12.50% chance of being the top goalscorer), and Liverpool’s Mo Salah is priced at around 8/1 (11.10% implied probability rate).
Does Haaland show up in big UEFA Champions matches?
Some people have also pointed out how Haaland didn’t show up in several big UEFA Champions League matches, only managing to score goals and perform well in the earlier stages against teams like Sevilla (2 goals), Copenhagen (2 goals), and RB Leipzig (5 goals!).
As mentioned, he failed to score against Real Madrid, and although he scored against Bayern Munich, he had a relatively quiet game. He also played twice against his old team, Borussia Dortmund, having quiet performances in both games and scoring only one goal.
Final note
It will be interesting to see how Erling Haaland performs this year against the big Premier League and Champions League teams.
He has already publicly stated that he feels the pressure to win the big games, so perhaps it’s just a confidence thing that he needs to improve to become a true big game player like Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé, and Cristiano Ronaldo, especially if he wants to cement his name in the history books as one of the greatest ever football players.
It’s still early days, and the Norwegian is only 23 years old, so he has plenty of time to prove himself. Only time will tell if he can become the best.
He is an absolute beast of a player, and he will no doubt go on to prove all his critics wrong throughout the 2023/24 season, just as he did in the previous season when Manchester City did the unthinkable and won the coveted treble (FA Cup, Premier League, and Champions League titles in one season).
