Paul Dickov has said that one Manchester City player has been getting some unfair criticism.
Pep Guardiola’s side walked away from their recent first-leg tie against Real Madrid in the quarter-finals of the Champions League with a 3-3 draw at the Santiago Bernabeu.
After the match, one pundit and former City player has highlighted one particular figure in the current Blues team that he feels has been getting some misplaced criticism.
Dickov says ‘fantastic’ City player is getting too much criticism
Speaking on talkSPORT, Dickov had this to say about Erling Haaland including his performance against Real and the recent criticism that has come his way in recent weeks.
He said: “I slightly disagree with what Stuart Pearce was saying before about him being poor last night. I thought his movement was absolutely fantastic, the way that he occupied the two centre-halves.
“If you look at [Josko] Gvardiol and [Phil] Foden’s goals, nobody is coming out, usually one of the centre halves would be coming in there to try and close him down but because Erling has that presence and the movement, he is occupying the centre-halves. So even when he is not at his best, he is still contributing to the team.
“The last few games of the season he could quite easily score seven, eight, nine or 10 goals. I think he is getting a bit of unjust stick at the minute. He has missed 10 games this season and is still the Premier League’s top goalscorer.”
Is the criticism of Erling Haaland fair?
Over the past few weeks, Haaland has been the topic of discussion, mostly with pundits questioning his quality in terms of playing outside the penalty box in the build-up to goals.
After failing to score in City’s 0-0 draw against Arsenal, the Norwegian was likened by Roy Keane to a League Two player due to his lack of and low-quality ability to play with the ball around his teammates.
Looking back over the recent draw in Madrid, the 23-year-old had 20 touches of the ball in total, completed six of the nine passes he attempted and won five of the 10 duels he was involved in.
As Dickov mentioned, Haaland has still scored more goals (19) than any other player in the Premier League this season.
Therefore, we feel that as long as he is scoring goals, any criticism that comes his way in regards to how he plays should be disregarded as long as he’s making efforts to improve and is still helping the team win games.