Erling Haaland News and Analysis

It looks like Erling Haaland is about to be off the table for Barcelona in 2025

18Nov

By Joe SorianoNo Comments

Features, LaLiga, Premier League

It looks like Erling Haaland is about to be off the table for Barcelona in 2025

Manchester City superstar striker Erling Haaland hasn't received as much fanfare this season with the Citizens falling further behind Liverpool in the Premier League title race, but he's actually on pace for his best goal-scoring numbers of the season. The clear top dog in Manchester with Rodri injured, Haaland has scored 12 goals in 11 Premier League matches this season, putting him on pace to potentially flirt with a historic 40-goal season. Haaland already holds the Premier League record for most single-season goals after smashing home 36 with 8 assists in Man City's treble-winning 2022/23 campaign. Although the Norwegian sensation's all-around numbers have slipped in recent seasons, his displays in 2022/23 and then prior to that with Borussia Dortmund show that his all-around ...

Deco is dousing the two biggest Barcelona striker transfer rumors with cold water

16Nov

By Joe SorianoNo Comments

Features, LaLiga

Deco is dousing the two biggest Barcelona striker transfer rumors with cold water

Barcelona have the most electrifying attack in world football this season after Hansi Flick took the reigns from Xavi and made this show his own. The Blaugrana have four of the best attacking players in La Liga right now in Dani Olmo, Lamine Yamal, Raphinha, and Robert Lewandowski. With a commanding lead in the league after their 4-0 drubbing of Real Madrid in El Clasico, Barcelona have a lot of momentum in mid-November, even if their most recent match was a 1-0 defeat to Real Sociedad. Yamal is undoubtedly the star of the show, but Lewandowski has been leading the line excellently as Europe's top goal scorer, proving many people, including within his own fanbase, horribly wrong when they declared him "finished". Before the season started, a possible transfer for Manchester City s...

Barcelona are dropping one of their dream transfer targets now

8Nov

By Joe SorianoNo Comments

LaLiga

Barcelona are dropping one of their dream transfer targets now

Barcelona president Joan Laporta had one aim when he took his old job back, and that was to get the Blaugrana back on top in European football after their standard had slipped to an embarrassing and entirely unacceptable level. Now in 2024/25, Barcelona look almost recognizable to the club that was first kept afloat by Lionel Messi and then later mired in losses during the 2021/22 season after he had left for Paris. Barcelona are fresh off demolitions of Bayern Munich and Real Madrid - two European powers who consistently had their number over the past five years - and they are by far the favorites to win the Spanish league. Hansi Flick has turned Barcelona back to its status as appointment television, as with the elite attacking trident of veteran striker Robert Lewandowski, brea...

This is Joan Laporta’s priority transfer target for Barcelona going into 2025

15Oct

By Kevin ParviziNo Comments

LaLiga

This is Joan Laporta’s priority transfer target for Barcelona going into 2025

Barcelona could only make one major signing in the summer 2024 transfer window, and they initially tried to place all their eggs in Nico Williams's basket after his sensational Euro 2024 campaign. But at the last minute, the Athletic Club left winger decided to remain loyal to the club where his brother plays, snubbing Barcelona and leaving the Blaugrana to pursue their Plan B attacking upgrade. That backup plan was none other than Dani Olmo, and the former Barcelona academy graduate has played excellently for the Blaugrana so far in 2024/25, scoring in each of his three appearances before being struck down by yet another injury. Olmo, Raphinha, Lamine Yamal, and Robert Lewandowski are firing on all cylinders as the actual best attacking quartet in La Liga, as new coach Hansi Flic...

Ranking the 10 best strikers in the world in 2024

3Oct

By Kevin ParviziNo Comments

Champions League, Features

Ranking the 10 best strikers in the world in 2024

Who are the best strikers in world football right now? With two months of action in the books in the 2024/25 league seasons, let's take an updated look at the best No. 9's on the planet, ranking them from tenth to first. Where did Robert Lewandowski and Harry Kane land? How does Ollie Watkins stack up with the elites? 10. Andrej Kramaric, Hoffenheim For years, Andrej Kramaric has been one of the best strikers in the Bundesliga, setting records as a goal-scorer for Hoffenheim without showing any desire to leave the German side. Kramaric makes this list over bigger names like Alvaro Morata and Dusan Vlahovic, because he honestly outplayed both of those guys significantly last season and has already been better to start the 2023/24 season. The problem with world football these days is...

Ranking the 10 best players in the Premier League right now during the 2024/25 season

30Sep

By Kevin ParviziNo Comments

Features, Premier League

Ranking the 10 best players in the Premier League right now during the 2024/25 season

10. Liverpool RB Trent Alexander-Arnold Honestly, I can't comprehend why there are so many amateur pundits who spend their days disparaging Trent Alexander-Arnold's defending as if he were on the level of a backup at Lecce when, in fact, he's an excellent one-on-one defender as a fullback. It's just that people can't seem to understand that an attacking fullback who actually tries to add value to his team going forward is going to inevitably get caught out defensively on occasion, with the frequency of those occurrences unduly distorted by an army of fail comp "artists" who clearly need a job. Alexander-Arnold is a better one-on-one defender than Reece James, who apparently earned a reputation as a superior defensive right back on the grounds of being physically bigger and having on...

The three strikers Barcelona have on their transfer wishlist

22Sep

By Kevin ParviziNo Comments

Features, LaLiga

The three strikers Barcelona have on their transfer wishlist

Barcelona have one of the best strikers in the world in Robert Lewandowski, but because he is 36 years old and one of the club's top wage earners at over 30 million euros per season, the Blaugrana have quietly been trying to find ways to replace him. Lewandowski is, at least, still an asset to Hansi Flick's elite attack, scoring four goals with two assists in the 2024/25 LaLiga season thus far. Although he was a record-breaking goal-scorer for Bayern Munich, Lewandowski is legitimately one of the best all-around No. 9's in the world. According to a report from Diario Sport, Barcelona have three talented strikers on their transfer wishlist going into the 2025 markets. Unsurprisingly, Joan Laporta's dream counterweight to Real Madrid's Kylian Mbappe, Manchester City superstar Erling Ha...

Ranking the 9 best goal-scoring Bundesliga seasons of the 2020s decade so far

10Sep

By Kevin ParviziNo Comments

Bundesliga, Features

Ranking the 9 best goal-scoring Bundesliga seasons of the 2020s decade so far

Even though the Bundesliga season is actually the shortest of any top five league since there are only 18 teams in the first division, meaning every team plays four fewer games per season, the German top flight has become known for gaudy goal-scoring statistics. But in case anyone keeps trying to apply the "Bundesliga tax" to downplay the accomplishments of top strikers in German football, Erling Haaland quickly dispelled that notion by breaking the single-season Premier League goals record in his first season with Manchester City, scoring more goals (36) than he ever did with Borussia Dortmund. Haaland is actually the only Dortmund player who scored at least 20 goals in a single season in the 2020s decade, and while there's only been four completed seasons in the 2020s, that speaks ...

An early look at the 10 best candidates to win the 2025 Ballon d’Or

9Sep

By Kevin ParviziNo Comments

Champions League, Features

An early look at the 10 best candidates to win the 2025 Ballon d’Or

I always find it funny how the Ballon d'Or narrative changes over the course of a year - or season, now that the timeframe of the award has changed. Like, when the 2023/24 season first started, all anyone could do was praise Jude Bellingham for taking LaLiga by storm, putting Real Madrid back on top, and scoring bangers in El Clasico to help affirm Real's return to dominance. The guy was leading the league in goals as a midfielder, and while his performances did decline a bit in the second half of the season, we are talking about a decline from being by far the best player in Europe to "just" being great. And it's not like Bellingham was bad at the Euros either. England almost won it, and he was literally the best player in the Final which England came agonizingly close to winning...

Every Premier League team’s most valuable player heading into the 2024/25 season

4Aug

By Kevin ParviziNo Comments

Features, Premier League

Every Premier League team’s most valuable player heading into the 2024/25 season

Addressing the topic of a player's value is extremely difficult in world football, especially when comparing across positions and even ascribing value to a player specific to the team they play for. One way to define "value" is an equivalence to importance. That is to say, a player is valuable because he is important to his team, and the "Most Valuable Player", which is the phrasing Serie A uses for its annual award in a hearken to American sports, is therefore the player who helped his team the most. But in this article ,I'd like to discuss value in a less nebulous but equally challenging realm, which is a player's financial value on the transfer market in a perfect vacuum in which leverage, contract, and overall situation are taken out. Let's take a look at the most valuable pla...