Every team in the Premier League wishes they had a striker like Erling Haaland. The new Manchester City number nine is the cream of the crop when it comes to the best strikers in European football, and he looks set to smash records during his time in England.
Haaland arriving at Man City allowed Arsenal to swoop in for Gabriel Jesus, with the Brazilian set for limited chances with the Norwegian striker ahead of him in the pecking order. Signing Jesus has proved to be an astute piece of business from the Gunners, with the 25-year-old scoring three goals and claiming three assists in his first six games in an Arsenal shirt.
Despite his impressive start, his numbers don't compare to Haaland - who has scored 13 goals in nine appearances in all competitions for City. Strikers like the 22-year-old don't come around too often, but Arsenal have been told that they used to have their own Haaland.
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Former Gunners winger Perry Groves says the striker is similar to his old team-mate Ian Wright. The boyhood Arsenal fan scored 156 goals in 262 games during his time at the club, and Groves believes Haaland's ability to be a constant pain to opposition centre-backs is a similarity he shares with Wright.
“Everybody keeps highlighting he only had 11 touches or only had 12, but nine times out of 10 he scored one or two, so it doesn’t matter how many touches [he has]," Groves told talkSPORT.
“We spoke off air about when I was playing with Wrighty, Ian Wright, when he came to the Gooners, he used to, in games, if he’d missed a chance, he’d be running round verbally being a pain to the centre halves.
“[Wright would say] ‘I’m gonna score in a minute, don’t let me have another chance, I’ll score’ he’d be slaughtering the wingers, having a go at the midfield, ‘get the ball in the box’.
“He’d score and go ‘told you, watch me again because I think I’ll get a hat-trick today’. In his head [Haaland is] thinking exactly the same, ‘you give me half a chance, and I will score’.
“I loved his interview after when they said ‘they kept you a little bit quiet’ and he went ‘I scored, they didn’t keep me quiet’.”
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