I can repeat a lot of things about Erling Haaland,” said Serbia manager Dragan Stojkovic this week. “He is a fantastic player and he plays in one of the best teams in the world. It is difficult to stop him, but it is not impossible.”
That was before Serbia’s Nations League win over Norway, to earn promotion at the Norwegians’ expense. In the process, Stojkovic became the first manager since May to stop Haaland scoring or assisting in a competitive game, ending Haaland’s impressive run of 15 goals in ten games this season.
During his electric start to life at Manchester City, the question of how to stop Haaland has been growing. Stojkovic knew it was possible, and City may be interesting to see how Serbia managed to stop him.
It seems part of their success was down to luck. Haaland had four shots and three on target. He was involved as much as he has been in games for City, getting 26 touches on the ball, although only six of those were in the opposition area. The statistics underline his pattern at City that while he doesn’t get on the ball too often, he does something productive with it when he does.
Interestingly, Serbia held a high line against Norway, with their back three pushing up well outside of their own area and into the middle of their own half. Their wing-backs stayed wide, and their central midfielders pushed wide, too. In theory, that would give Haaland plenty of space to exploit, but perhaps their supporting players are not as dangerous as City’s are, allowing Serbia to impose their own game more than adapt to defend against Haaland.
Haaland attempted no dribbles or key passes in the game, and was largely restricted to entering the opposition box, attempting just 15 passes himself. It seems he simply had an off-day, even though the service to him looked to be lacking and Serbia could afford to focus solely on him rather than teams defending against City who have other world-class forwards to contain.
Take Bournemouth’s set-up against City for example, with the Cherries the only side to stop Haaland scoring in the Premier League so far this season. Their back five set up significantly deeper than Serbia, occupying most of their own penalty area, with the central midfielders and wingbacks also back in their own third.
Haaland had fewer touches than his other score-less game – just eight – but two were shots, one was a clever assist for Ilkay Gundogan, and his pass accuracy this time was 100 per cent. And while Haaland had a quiet game, City still won comfortably, with Gundogan, Phil Foden and Kevin De Bruyne in particular benefitting from the space left when defenders kept Haaland busy.
That is the conundrum teams will face, and one that Serbia arguably didn’t have to deal with. City’s supporting cast can punish you without Haaland, so it is one thing to stop Haaland scoring, but another task all together to keep the whole City attack out.
City great Shaun Goater, speaking to MEN Sport this week on behalf of OLBG, said the Bournemouth approach rather than the Serbia tactics are likely to be the best chance to stop Haaland.
“If I want to stop Haaland then I’m probably not going to push up too high because his pace is electric,” Goater said. “If he’s got a bit of space to run on to where the goalkeeper can’t come, then he’s probably quick enough to get there.
“If Manchester City decide to throw the ball in the air and you’re deep as a defence, then Haaland is a big man, so you’d have to compete in the air physically as well.
“I haven’t seen enough of him in the air to say he’s an exceptional header of the ball, but he doesn’t need to be because of how Manchester City play and how prolific he is as a finisher.
“A team would have to be deep, but that could play into Manchester City’s hands because other players would come alive when trying to find space in tight areas. There are so many other players who can affect the game, so stopping Haaland is one thing but then you have a lot of others to deal with.”
Any side who manages to stop Haaland will be used as a model for the next team to play him. Maybe Manchester United will be more confident about pressing high and stopping the service into Haaland, rather than sitting deep at the Etihad on Sunday.
Or maybe, as Goater adds, Haaland is just getting started, with the ability to get even better in City’s build-up.
He said: “In terms of making him better I don’t think it’ll make his goal scoring abilities better, but I think it’ll make him better in terms of his involvement in the game. That’s just when he decides to come short and be involved in the build-up.
“But in all honesty, I get the impression that he’s not really fussed about that. It looks like he isn’t bothered about coming short and getting a touch on the ball. He’s said it himself in the past, his dream in each game is to touch the ball five times and score five goals.
“I was amazed by that because his attitude to the game is totally different to other players because most want to be involved in the game. A lot of players think having more touches and being involved in the game means you’re playing well.
“But Haaland flipped that on its head and just changed the way that we might look at it. He’s not bothered about having 30 or 40 touches, like I said he will want five touches to get five goals. When you think about it, that would be a truly amazing game if he managed to do that in a game.”
As Stojkovic demonstrated, stopping Haaland is not impossible. Stopping Haaland and his City teammates, though, will be an impressive feat from whichever team can be the first to manage it this season.