Jamie Carragher has compared Erling Haaland to Premier League legend Thierry Henry saying the striker will make defenders scared of embarrassment.
Haaland scored his third hat-trick in as many home games as Manchester City steamrolled crosstown rivals Manchester United in their derby on October 2. The Norwegian striker scored three and registered two assists as he smashed several records in what was just his eighth Premier League appearance.
Speaking about Haaland’s Manchester derby performance on Sky Sports, Carragher said: “For two years there was only one player in my career who affected me mentally and that was Thierry Henry. I played against a lot of great players an you’d go into a game thinking ‘I can get the better of them, they might make mistakes’, but Henry from 2022-04 when I went to play against him, I only thought about him. One of the most embarrassed I have been on a football pitch was the goal against Liverpool at Highbury, I sort of fall over and cower and I’m that embarrassed because it is not me, it is not my way of thinking, but it’s the Thierry Henry effect.
“And what he [Haaland] is doing is not making players think ‘can I stop him playing well, can I stop him scoring?’ Defenders are going into games thinking ‘don’t embarrass me’, and that is what I used to feel against Henry. If he scored or did okay, as long as he didn’t embarrass me.”
