After Tuesday evening’s performance against Genk, it’s incredibly hard to ignore Erling Braut Håland.
The young Norwegian striker has set the football world alight since the start of the season, scoring 17 goals in his first nine games for RB Salzburg, including a hat-trick against the Belgians on his Champions League debut.
The former Molde starlet has long been linked with clubs such as Manchester United, where his ex-manager is currently in charge.
Back in July 2018, before the move to Salzburg had been arranged, there was a lot of speculation surrounding the now 19-year-old, and both he and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer commented on it, at which point the now United manager made an interesting comparison, especially considering what happened earlier this year and over the summer.
He said, relayed by NRK: “He will be a top player for sure. He reminds me of Romelu Lukaku.”
Now at Inter, the Belgian striker’s relationship with the Norwegian manager appeared to fracture during the second half of the 2018-19 campaign, eventually leading to his very public exit from Old Trafford.
As for Håland, who might not be the biggest fan of Manchester United in the first place, he only had one idea in mind: playing football.
He said that if he left Molde, ‘it has to be the right club’, one that takes ‘good care’ of him and where he would get to ‘play and develop’.
While he is heavily featuring on the pitch, and performing extremely well, this year, his first six months with Salzburg were very different.
He only featured five times during the second half of their campaign, mostly coming off the bench, but that was under Marco Rose.
With Jesse Marsch now in charge and his former manager at Borussia Mönchengladbach, things are going well, and it won’t be long until Håland ends up being linked with rumours in the same bracket (at least financially) as the £70m transfer Lukaku underwent this summer.
Those Manchester United fans hoping Håland is the real deal and that Solskjaer can help their club with any transfer swoop, may not be too thrilled about the manager comparing him to Lukaku, a player who clearly didn’t fit the current outlook.
