Erling Haaland Is the Premier League Savior
There is a growing sentiment among Premier League traditionalists in remembrance of the good ol’ days claiming that football is dead. That the modern style has stripped the beautiful game of its passion, personality, and style. The days of bitter rivalries and monstrous grudges have been replaced with professionalism and kinship. Owners favor profitability over victory as more teams are bought by private equity firms or princes. No longer do teams suffer through a windy night in Stoke or shiver at the thought of walking through the tunnel at Old Trafford. This growing faction of fans has taken root in the agreement that the stars of today could never last in the games of yesteryear but, they have an unrecognized savior among their worst enemy.
The Norwegian giant who is in a Golden Boot race with entire clubs and not his peers has been called a robot and the worst example of the modern game style they hate. However, they could not be more wrong for they have misunderstood Erling Haaland. The pace of Thierry Henry and Michael Owen. The veracity and aggression of Roy Keane and Wayne Rooney. The finishing of Alan Shearer and Andy Cole. Even the sixth sense to somehow always be in the right place at the right time like Frank Lampard and Ole Gunnar Solskjær. Haaland possesses the signature hallmarks of the Premier League greats these fans bring up time and time again.
Yet, Haaland has been consistently disrespected as the destroyer of the league or not being good enough to even step onto the pitch for a Premier League side. Roy Keane himself likened Haaland’s ability to that of strikers from League Two the English fourth division. He is criticized for not being as technical on the ball as people deem necessary to play in their beloved league or that he just sits in the box to score tap-ins. If it was that easy to break the record for breaking records in record time, then why is he the seemingly unqualified man to do it? Premier League fans have the harbinger of the old days right under their noses playing for their worst enemy of a manager, yet they cannot see his simplistic genius for what it is.
