Gary Neville has claimed that Manchester City currently have a player who will “dominate world football” for seven years.
Manchester City’s recruitment strategy is tailored in a way where they often sign players at an age that can be developed into becoming superstars.
Pep Guardiola’s men do not only sign young players.
However, they tend to sign players in their early twenties ever so often to ensure they enter their prime years at the Etihad Stadium.
Neville says one City star will “dominate” football for seven years
It always seems as if City are able to replace their top players seamlessly — a facet of football that several clubs struggle with.
As a result, the Sky Blues consistently challenge for major honours as their recruitment seems to be geared towards looking at the bigger picture.
Especially during Pep Guardiola’s reign, which is why his spell at City has been the club’s most fruitful.
While picking his Premier League Team of the Season, Gary Neville stated that Erling Haaland can dominate the game due to his remarkable goalscoring record.
Neville said on Sky Sports: “Do you know something, you only realise when you have these players, this is a special player, one of the greatest in the world, his goalscoring numbers will go on to dominate world football for the next five, six, seven years in my opinion and he just has to be in there.”
“You can think about giving someone else a chance and that’ll be the emotional, compassionate way to look at it but every club in the league, if you could name a centre-forward and they could take one would name him.”
The £51 million man is still far from the finished article and much like other elite goalscorers like Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, he will reach that point in his career a few years down the line.
Unlike Gary Neville, Jamie Carragher opted for Ollie Watkins over Erling Haaland as the striker in his Premier League Team of the Season, however.
The Premier League is lucky to have a player like Erling Haaland
In our view, Gary Neville could not have been more correct in his assessment of Erling Haaland and his potential career trajectory.
The Premier League is fortunate to have a goalscorer of his ilk who is setting standards not many have before.
Furthermore, Haaland could continue to raise the profile of the league as the division has a player who could go down in history as one of the greatest playing his best football.
Every league across Europe gets the chance to have a talent of his standard once in a few decades.