We’ve had some truly remarkable individual seasons in Premier League history.
Luis Suarez and Yaya Toure electrified in the mid-2010s; Mohamed Salah established himself as world-class in 2017-18. Thierry Henry, Alan Shearer, Eden Hazard, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Wayne Rooney are among a ton of stars to grace and alight the English top-flight.
Erling Haaland is on track to out-do them all. He is the fastest man to three Premier League hat-tricks, topped off with a final treble in his first Manchester Derby, smashing the record previously held by Michael Owen by 40 games, and is on track to score a ridiculous 60-plus goals this season after an early-season flurry has the Norwegian at 14 scalps in eight games.
Truly remarkable.
However, don’t let this anomalous dawn of his Premier League career fool you into thinking adaptation to the English top-flight is a walk in the park. It is anything but that.
Haaland is an outlier of a footballer. Not only is he physically one of the most dominant players in the world, fast as anything and strong as an ox with movement that occurs as if he’s on autopilot, he is the focal point of arguably one of the finest squads ever assembled in English football, overseen by the greatest manager of all time, and with a plethora of creative talents supplying him.
Granted, no one expected the Norwegian to surge as he has done, but anyone in their right mind should’ve seen success coming.
(Photo by James Gill – Danehouse/Getty Images)
Even Salah in his record-breaking goal-scoring season managed four goals after eight games. The aforementioned Luis Suarez nabbed 11 goals in his first full season in the Premier League.
The point being adjustment takes time. Morphing into a successful player takes time. Learning a new language and living in a new country takes time.
It’s an important factor to note when making early calls on the success of a player’s transfer. There are numerous conditions that dictate how swiftly a player can replicate the form that saw them signed.
Notably I raise this to discuss Darwin Nunez’s early season struggles in a rational manner without unfairly comparing him to Haaland in a manner that is, respectfully, akin to comparing a Formula One car to a V8 Supercar: both are powerful in their own right, but there are levels to it.
The Uruguayan’s game time has been hindered, initially for three games due to a red card in his side’s 1-1 home draw against Palace, and a minor hamstring injury accrued on international duty, which saw the striker play one minute in Liverpool’s draw against Brighton at the weekend.
Adding to his woes is the fact that, unlike Haaland, he finds himself as the hypothetical focal point of a side that is struggling for form this season. Mohamed Salah looks lost, Trent Alexander-Arnold is the subject of much conjecture related to his widely-known and previously accepted defensive deficiencies, and even the previously unflappable Virgil Van Dijk has returned to mortality this year.
He has not fallen into a well-oiled creativity machine placing balls on a platter for him. The Liverpool player capable of producing anything like Kevin De Bruyne’s inch-perfect curled ball behind United for Haaland’s second is Trent.
Aleksandar Mitrovic, who is third in goal scoring ranks this season, needed multiple cracks at the English top flight to establish himself and showcase his ability in the division.
Elsewhere in the league, Kalidou Koulibaly has had a mixed beginning to his life at Chelsea. The same can be said for Haaland’s adversaries at the weekend, Lisandro Martinez, and Raphael Varane. Gianluca Scamacca, Lucas Paqueta, and Alexander Isak have all started slowly for their own reasons.
Nunez is adjusting not just to a new system of play and new living arrangements, but also to a momentous shift in life and only having a limited ability to communicate with Jurgen Klopp and some of his other non-Portuguese speaking teammates. I’m sure there are plenty of examples where this remains true.
The modern world is one of instance. Everything is delivered at the click of the fingers: food, information, weather reports. The process of discovery has been sucked out of all facets of life; football included.
Don’t let Erling Haaland fool you – in this day and age, good things still take time. The process needs to be adhered to. Very few incidents occur where success, by whatever definition, is achieved as swiftly as the Norwegian has.
Things, of course, may not work out for Nunez and the host of other stars who have joined the English top flight in the last 18 months, but the reality is only time will tell.
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