Former Ireland boss Martin O'Neill has defended Erling Haaland in the wake of Roy Keane's "League 2 player" comments from last week.
Arsenal and Manchester City played out a 0-0 draw last week, shortly after Keane made the remarks on Sky Sports.
The comments have created a debate around how good Haaland is despite the number of goals scored. Keane argues that Haaland is ordinary when he's not scoring goals for fun.
"He's almost like a League Two player—that's the way I look at him. His general play has to improve. It will do so over the next few years. [He's a brilliant striker but he has to improve his overall game," Keane said after the Arsenal game
During the week City boss Guardiola responded to the comments ahead of his side's clash with Aston Villa, saying he strongly disagreed with them.
He said: "I do not agree with him, absolutely not. He's a manager for the second or third league? I don't think so.
"He's the best striker in the world and he helped us win what we won last season. The reason we didn't create many chances [vs Arsenal] was not Erling; it's that we need more presence in the final third with more people.
"We played an exceptional game; I reviewed the game against Arsenal, but we missed more people in the final third, maybe for the quality and skills that we have. Erling is exceptional."
"He's almost like a League 2 player" 😲
Roy Keane and Micah Richards were not impressed with Erling Haaland 👇 pic.twitter.com/kbz0qNrTFQ— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) March 31, 2024
O'Neill, Keane's former Ireland partner on the sidelines, believes that Guardiola was only defending his player from the remark and that Keane more than likely overemphasised the point he was trying to make
"Well, I suppose sometimes as a manager, you're thrown a question, and you have a split second in which to deal with it. You either decide, "Shall I go down this route and you know where it might lead to, or shall I just dismiss it?"
"I think he's decided that he wants to defend his player. I happen to agree with him. I happen to think that Haaland is probably the best striker in the world, and Roy has probably overemphasised the point. It's something I didn't hear the comment about firsthand, so I don't know whether he meant it in a general sense, which would be wrong, or whether it happened to be in that particular game," he said on Talksport.
O'Neill then addressed the remark that Keane made that Haaland, who has scored over 30 goals again in the league, is a League 2 standard player. The former Ireland boss described Haaland as "fantastic."
"However, Haaland is fantastic, and if sometimes he's not wrong in that he doesn't have too many touches on the ball, he doesn't get involved in the rest of the play. But I'm not into that at all about the number of touches he has or hasn't had in the game. He is a brilliant striker. He scores goals for fun," he added
"I understand where he's coming from—not at all; no, I'm not because it's the hardest thing in the world to do—scoring goals. So, and he scores them in multiple numbers. He's fantastic. He's the best in the world; there's no question about it. Just because sometimes the ball's laid up to him, he might not control it immediately, and it's not too often.
"Manchester City played in a different sort of way, and if the team is content for him just to finish things off, that's fine. I didn't see Gary Lineker being accused of the same thing; he couldn't join in on the play. The best striker Germany has ever had, Gerd Müller, was a boxer; that's what they said.
"He didn't bother outside the penalty box. It didn't matter, and this number of touches, it does my brain in when I see the stats coming up and they see that Haaland had five touches and he's only scored four goals in the five touches.
"It does my brain in, and he is; he's the best in the world."
