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Jamie Carragher Unsure How Well Erling Haaland Will Fit At Man City

Eoin Harrington
By Eoin Harrington
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Manchester City have been on the move in the transfer market, in an attempt to stay ahead of Liverpool in this season's Premier League title race. The biggest arrival at Man City is, of course, Erling Haaland.

The Norwegian striker has been widely regarded as the most exciting young striker in Europe for years now, and he follows in his father's footsteps in playing for the blue half of Manchester.

86 goals in 89 games for Borussia Dortmund over the last three years would suggest that Haaland will be a success at Man City, but Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher is a little more cautious than most football punters.

Carragher appeared on a special pre-season episode of The Overlap alongside Gary Neville this week. He had previously said he did not believe Haaland would be a "gamechanger" for Man City, and he explained his comments in detail ahead of the new Premier League season kicking off on Friday night.

Erling Haaland: Jamie Carragher has "question marks" about Man City's summer signing

Ahead of the new Premier League season, the arrival of Erling Haaland to English football has plenty of fans - especially Manchester City supporters - especially excited.

Speaking on The Overlap, Jamie Carragher praised Haaland to Man City as a 'brilliant' transfer for the Premier League:

I think it's a brilliant signing for the Premier League. Normally you'd see a player like that go to Madrid or Barcelona. I think he's a player to be embraced by all of us - "wow, we've got Haaland in our league."

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Carragher has previously stated that he doesn't believe Erling Haaland will be a "gamechanger" for the already excellent Manchester City.

He doubled down on those comments on The Overlap, and explained why he had doubts about how Haaland would fit into the City system:

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I don't think it's a gamechanger for Man City - they already get 95 points. I think they got 100 points three years ago. Will he make them better? He'll make them different. He will score 25-30 goals, maybe more, of course he will.

But when you say they won the league without a striker...that gives you more possession, maybe more control of the game - maybe they'll have less of that this season, it may be a different City.

To have Haaland there is really special. The one thing I would say about Haaland at Man City, though - City are unique. Every other team in Europe play a lot more technical, a lot more football, but no one plays it like City - they're probably a little bit slower, more structured, more technical.

The only thing I would say is that Haaland's come from the Bundesliga, a very counter-attacking, end-to-end league. When you see Haaland run on a 20-30 yard burst, it's like "wow". It's whether you'd see that as much in the Man City team, because of the way they play, than you would if he was in other teams.

They're a few question marks about how he'll fit in at City, but you can't question the signing or the quality of the player.

Haaland made his official debut for Man City in last Saturday's Community Shield against Liverpool, and struggled to make an impact as Liverpool took a 3-1 win.

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Gary Neville also gave his take on the signing on The Overlap, and was more hopeful about Haaland's chances of making a sizeable impact on the league, despite his struggles last weekend.

It's something they needed [a striker]. They won the league last year but they had to take the risk of signing a centre forward.

There were teething problems last weekend, as Jamie said, the timing of how City play and seeing his runs, when he runs, particularly his movement in the box but also his movement in behind defenders. There were moments last week when he did make movements in behind Liverpool's high line and he wasn't spotted.

I can't see how he's going to be anything other than sensational. I did say that, though, about Lukaku at Chelsea! I thought that was a no-brainer. There is a small chance that Haaland's style doesn't suit City, that City's style doesn't suit Haaland.

But it's a small chance. I just think the quality of players around him, he's committed, he's lived here before - all those risks you talk about with a big signing, the only one with him is injury probably. It can't not work.

Manchester City's season gets underway on Sunday afternoon at 4:30pm away to West Ham. Erling Haaland will almost certainly start the game, and it will be fascinating to see what kind of an impact he makes on the Premier League.

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