Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II passed away at Balmoral Castle on Thursday 8th September 2022, surrounded by members of her family.
I wish to dedicate this blog to her memory and put on record my thanks to Her Royal Highness for the tireless, humble service she gave to our nation over the full length of her 70 years and 214 days on the throne. I was never privileged to have the honour of meeting Her Majesty during her lifetime, but from all I saw of her during coverage of her work and through listening to her annual Christmas messages to the nations she ruled her humble dedication to all her subjects was clear.
It was a pleasure to have lived in the Second Elizabethan Age and I look forward to being able to pay my respects to Her Majesty in person at the weekend as she lies in state at Westminster Hall.
Rest in Peace Queen Elizabeth II
Wednesday 31st August 2022: Premier League: Etihad Stadium: Manchester City vs Nottingham Forest
I travelled to the Etihad for this midweek evening game, having bought a ticket 2 days earlier, expecting it to result in a pretty normal match report style blog. What I didn’t reckon on was one of the greatest individual displays of footballing genius I am ever likely to witness. Erling Haaland was the provider of this masterclass as he spent the 69 minutes he was on the pitch tormenting the Nottingham Forest defence, orchestrating affairs and scoring a 25 minute hat-trick to boot.
Before Kick-off the visiting fans on the trams had given their team minimal chances of taking anything from the match ‘at least we have easier games to come’ and after kick-off Haaland set about proving the truth of those defeatist predictions. He was instrumental at keeping the ball away from Forest and using it to rip them to shreds.
That it took Haaland 13minutes to open the scoring had more to do with the service he was receiving than anything he was doing himself. The genius was pulling out every trick in the universe to turn the Forest midfield inside-out and bamboozle the defence. Normally a player of 6’3″ stature would be easy for the opposition to track and choke out of the game, but not Haaland. Finding pockets of space where none has existed 3 seconds earlier was meat and drink to him, then using them to create chances or openings for teammates was just the icing on his cake.
When the opener came it was from a corner on the left that was flicked into the near post, where all 6’3″ of City’s number 9 had left his marker for dead to guide it home. The desire he showed to get to that ball before the multitudes of defenders in the local vicinity was incredible. Having done that, he then had to meet the ball at speed and direct it with neurosurgical laser precision through a non-existent gap between keeper and post. The finish was a clear sign of his composure in front of goal and a warning to everyone he will play in future that when he gets the ball in the penalty area you can expect to see the scoresheet ticking over like a teenager’s heart when they see their crush. He is as deadly as a cyanide injection in the 6-yard box and only marginally less deadly from outside that radius.
Not only is he that deadly in close proximity to the goal but he is also an electric eel of a player wherever he is on the pitch, making it excruciatingly difficult for opponents to pin him down. Add to that the grace of a swan with the ball at his feet and once he has been supplied the ball you can’t get it back off him until he deigns to release it.
With all that in mind and the fact that Forest barely touched the ball in the first 25 minutes, much less escaped their own half, it seems incredible that it took Haaland a full 10 minutes to double his and City’s match tally. When it arrived it came from a moronic period of play in the Forest backline that Haaland punished with ruthless efficiency. The visitors were attempting to play fancy football at the back and when this broke down Haaland collected the ball and 6 touches later it was resting it the back of the net. All it took was a quick one-two with Phil Foden to allow Haaland to ghost in unseen through the gaping holes that now existed in the Forest defence. Allowing him to caress the ball home with leagues of room on all sides, just 6 yards outs in the centre of the goal.
Not only was this a brilliant example to show any up and coming forward on how to lose their marker and create space in the box, but seconds later the man with the brace was providing another lesson to all present in work rate. From the kick off City got the ball back, attacked and when the move broke down, with his teammates cursing the failure of the attack, Haaland hunted the breaking opponent down on the halfway line and hustled to regain possession for his team. He even engaged in a fair physical confrontation for the ball and came away victorious – a wonderful example of how to battle fairly for the ball and win it back without having to resort to the dark side of the beautiful game to do so.
The completion of Haaland’s hat-trick took a full 15 minutes to complete, but even so a 25-minute hattrick is nothing to be scoffed at. Before we get to the completion of his second hattrick in 4 days though we must first acknowledge that Erling Haaland is indeed human and, as with all humanity, he is not immune from mistakes. He made the mistake in the 27th minute, 4 minutes post brace completion, when he was caught offside in the box, having found hectares of free space in which to roam, as he created the conditions necessary to get on the end of a cross from Joao Cancelo.
That small moment of human failing from the footballing genius he got back to his goal scoring ways in the 38th minute. The completion of his hattrick was came from an unmarked header from 2 yards out after a bit of penalty box ping-pong as Forest bungled the chance to clear a City corner from the left. Penalty box ping-pong is disorientating for even the most incredible world-class players, but not for Erling Haaland as his inbuilt poacher’s GPS homed in on the goal to help him too exactly the right spot to dink his free header home.
How such a giant of a man with distinctive long blond locks can spirit himself into such incredible clearings of space without a single defender tracking him is beyond my comprehension. It’s not like he’s exactly easy to miss and thus can fly under the radar without hassle, yet he found a way to do so time and again in this match and never did the Forest players come close to tracking him.
So total was Haaland mastery of the 18-yard box that he could have completed his trio of goals before the actual crowning of his perfect hat-trick (one goal each with left boot, right boot and his head). The second of which came from a stooping header at the near post after shaking off his marker to reach a tempting cross from the right, less than a minute before his actual third goal.
The photos below were taken as soon as the shock of the brilliance of each of his goals had receded enough for me to be cognisant of my surroundings once more. After the first I had no understanding of the brilliance to come so I was pleasing quick to the photo, but the recovery time after his other goals was far longer as I came to terms with the masterclass being laid out before me.
Having completed his hat-trick Haaland took a step back from finishing chances and seemed simply content to run the play instead. As City added a 4th and 5th goal to their tally in the second half it was Julain Alvarez and Joao Cancelo who took over scoring duties from the Norwegian juggernaut, he plays for Norway internationally despite being born in Leeds. Instead of finishing the chances he contented himself with tormenting Forest defenders and midfielders, giving them nightmares for the rest of their lives.
It’s not as though he had no chances for a 4th when galloped into the fray but at least 1 of the Forest defenders seemed to have finally switched onto the danger the Marauding genius posed. Joe Worral, Nottingham Forest’s captain, was the first Forest player to track one of Haaland’s searching runs all game to get himself into position to make a goal-saving tackle as Haaland surged through the centre intent on getting his fourth goal of the match. A goal that would have taken him to 10 scored from his first 5 matches in English football, but due to Worral’s excellent reactions he would have to make do with just the 9 – a full 33% more than City Legend Aguero managed in his opening 5.
Every follower of English football in the last decade knows Aguero could smell out a goal in the box better than a shark can smell out a drop of blood in the ocean and now City have a striker on their hands who is even more deadly. It’s a great time to be a City supporter and a scary time to be a fan of any team finding themselves facing them. Who knows Haaland may even be the missing piece in their pursuit of continental sucess? Anything’s possible…
Particularly so as when Haaland’s masterclass was brought to a premature end to rapturous in the 69th minute, as Guardiola allowed his talisman a well earnt rest, who was sent on in his place? None other than one of the best creative midfielders in world football of the last 5 seasons, Kevin De-Bruyne.
Those are my musing on one of the greatest exhibitions of footballing genius I am ever likely to witness. My next blog will come from London as I return to my church to see Brentford take on Arsenal in a re-run of their first ever Premier League match, a similar result would be greatly appreciated.
Rest in Peace Queen Elizabeth II
God Save King Charles III
The Football tourist 