Manchester United must stop ‘superb’ Man City player who is more deadly than Erling Haaland

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If Manchester United are to beat Manchester City this weekend, they’ll need to put a stop to Julian Alvarez who has been excellent this season.

Ahead of facing Man City, Erling Haaland is the name many focus on dealing with, but Erik ten Hag should be focussing on how to stop Julian Alvarez instead. Alvarez has scored seven goals and made four assists this season already, and is fundamentally a far more dangerous play than Haaland.

The Manchester United defence has already proved itself capable of stopping Haaland, such as during the FA Cup Final where the Norweigan was described as ‘ineffective’ as he didn’t do much to trouble the defence.

Alvarez on the other hand, is the type of player that any defence would struggle with, especially considering the two defenders likely to start aren’t the most mobile in the world.

Why Alvarez is City’s most deadly player

Alvarez is a much more technical footballer than Haaland and has a greater range with the ball. While with Haaland he will look to wait in the box for the ball, Alvarez buzzes around and picks the ball up all across the pitch.

Often praised, Ally McCoist referred to Alvarez as ‘superb’ on TNT Sports, while former United man Owen Hargreaves admitted on TNT Sports he’d never seen Alvarez have a bad game.

In order to stop Alvarez, United will need to mark him out of the game, as he can create magic from anywhere.

This could be a job for either Sofyan Amrabat or Casemiro, to limit the space Alvarez gets, otherwise, he could indeed punish us. He can cause damage down either wing, in midfield or up front and that is why he is a player so tough to stop.

United could’ve had him for £17m – a huge miss

Back when Ralf Rangnick was at United he wanted Alvarez, however, this move ultimately didn’t happen and it’s safe to say the recruitment team are regretting that mistake right now.

This just epitomises the poor recruitment strategy at United in recent years, a genuine world-class player was passed up on despite his potential being there for all to see.

Alvarez would be our best attacker by some distance which shows how bad a blunder it was to not sign him, the same summer in which we spent £86m on Antony.

A clear lesson for the club to learn from in the future in order to avoid a similarly embarrassing miss in the transfer market.