However, there are quite a few times when Haaland doesn’t engage in hold-up situations even when he would have a clear size advantage against the defender. In the same game, the youngster lets the defender get in front of him to win the header when he could have used traditional hold-up techniques to win the ball and lay it off to Reus for a counter. The underlying numbers back this up as he’s only receiving 50.7% passes to him, which ranks in the 20th percentile for forwards in Europe’s top five leagues.
The 20-year-old’s passing tends to be hit or miss and this is reflected in his pass accuracy percentage, which is just above average for strikers at 72.3%. This is largely down to the fact that most of his passes are first-time flicks or layoffs, which are lower percentage passes.
This is an aspect of his game that can be improved but it should not come as a huge surprise that his passing can be weak.There is usually a correlation between players who tend to have better ball control and touch having higher quality in passing. Haaland is not one of those players. His frame makes it difficult for him to control the ball at times as the ball can cannon off his legs quite frequently but it’s an aspect in his game that he is getting better at.
This leads nicely onto his dribbling skill, which is similar to his passing in that he is just above average. However, that is not to say that he can’t still hold his own in this category as there are quite a few positives. His speed and physicality can be a great asset in 1vs1 situations and have helped him complete 56.4% of his dribbles but this is on quite a low volume – 1.68 dribbles per game.
So how does Haaland’s skill set in these departments transfer onto impact on the pitch? The focus will be on looking at Haaland’s ability to create as top forwards can facilitate chances for their teammates at a great rate. The graph below displays three different metrics describing creation: shot-creating actions, expected goals assisted and key passes.
The graph shows Haaland being below average in both shot-creating actions and key passes but his 0.19 xA is a promising figure. He ranks in the 87th percentile in this category against forwards in Europe’s top five leagues. It’s clear that he is not generating these quality chances by passing, so is he doing this by dribbling?
Below is another graph that looks at the shots created via dribbling and fouls won in comparison to dribbling volume. The graph highlights that Haaland, marked in red, doesn’t create a lot of shots from dribbling and doesn’t do this efficiently either. Therefore, he is not creating good quality chances via dribbling either. Instead, he creates great opportunities for his teammates the same way he creates for himself – his off-ball movement.
Helem,
definicija tehničke prosječnosti ili ispodprosječnosti.
Iskreno,
bilo bi me stid tolike godine pratiti fudbal, a ne znati osnove istog.
Malo manje teletexta i livescorea, a malo više gledanja utakmica.
Što sam ja napisao