Jamie Carragher on Erling Haaland’s few shots outside the penalty box: “That’s a positive. When people are scouting players, do they take bad shots? We often talk about bad shots from outside the box. We don’t see as many screamers or great goals as we used to in the past because of that reason.”

Jamie Carragher on Erling Haaland being in the 131st place among all Premier League players when it comes to number of shots from outside the penalty area since the start of 2022-23 season (Haaland with only 10 shots)

That’s a positive

And people may find that strange but when you look at analytics now and when people assess strikers, it’s easy to assess Haaland. You look at his goal record, he’s an amazing player.

But when people are now scouting players, where they take shots from, do they take stupid shots? And more often than not we talk about silly shots being from outside the box. We don’t see as many screamers or great goals as we used to in the past because of that reason.

And that is a big part of analysis now. When you’re looking for a striker, who you’re going to bring in, who you’re going to buy, that is actually his strength. He doesn’t take silly shots, we see where he scores his goals from, the six yard box and the second six yard box, that’s where he gets his goals from.

Even though he’s Erling Haaland, maybe at times he might be able to think “I’m going to have a shot from 30 yards, I’m going to shoot from 25 yards, I’m going to do what I want because I’m Erling Haaland”.

He always plays for the team and he always waits for the right moment to get his shot off.