Haaland refuses to take an MRI, plays with painkillers

Borussia Dortmund fans are happy that the season is nearing it’s end. With their Europa competition ended to early (surprise knockout from Rangers), as well as their participation in the DFB Cup (lost to second-tier club in 1/8 finals), the Bundesliga title is out of reach as well, since Bayern Munich is currently 9 points ahead. Borussia’s current position is not under threat, since their closest rival, Bayer Leverkusen is 8 points away. So these remaining games, including the one with Wolfsburg will mainly serve to coach Marco Rose, to fully access his squad for the next season, when new arrivals will happen, as well as many departures. Among them is the club’s top scorer, Erling Haaland.

The Norwegian is having a bad season, at least according to his own merits. Injuries have happened to Haaland for the first time, and they have limited his goalscoring abilities to only 16 goal so far, behind Robert Lewandowski (32), Patrick Schick (20) and Christopher Nkunku (17). And what’s more ironic, his team, Borussia Dortmund is more effective when Haaland is not in the team. Off course, nobody can deny his importance to the team, but stats show that with Haaland right from the start (21 games), Dortmund scores 1.8 points per game in all competition, compared to 1.9 points per game in 20 games when he was injured or out of the game completely. And this data is only interested in terms of his teammates, who are trying more when the Norwegian is not there, knowing that they also need to score goals.

But his presence alone is so powerful, as another data reveals: If Haaland scores in the Bundesliga, Dortmund will almost certainly win (9 wins, ony one loss - against Bayern). And bad news for Wolfsburg is that Haaland will play against them on Saturday, but the Dortmund striker is also on painkillers and in biggest goal crisis since early days: he has not scored in five games (384 minutes) - and has only had one big chance since returning from a muscle injury.

„Erling is not pain free yet after his injury during the international break. I received a photo a few weeks ago where his foot was pointing 90 degrees away from his leg. You can be certain that his ankle suffered some damage. As a club, we have to ask ourselves how to deal with that: should we scan the ankle or not? He has tried very, very professionally to deal with the swelling. But you can’t force a player to take an MRI if he doesn’t want to. It’s not optimal, but it’s getting better. After the Stuttgart game, the swelling went down, but he will have to deal with it for a while longer. Erling has been gritting his teeth and training through the pain. He is likely to take a painkiller ahead of the game and then he should be fine” said Rose, obviously nervous that his striker will (again) be on the edge with his ankle injury. Not to mention that Borussia’s coach has to deal with other injuries like Dahoud (shoulder problems), Reyna (muscle and tendon injury) and Hummels (muscle injury) along with Malen and possibly Gerrero. 

BUNDESLIGA - ROUND 30

Saturday

16.30: (1.61) Dortmund (4.40) Wolfsburg (6.50)

16.30: (1.77) Freiburg (3.70) Bochum (5.20)

16.30: (2.03) Augsburg (3.50) Hertha (4.40)

16.30: (2.06) Mainz (3.50) Stuttgart (4.20)

19.30: (2.08) M' gladbach (3.60) Koln (4.00)

Sunday

16.30: (13.0) Bielefeld (7.25) Bayern (1.28)

18.30: (2.29) Union Berlin (3.30) Eintr.Frankfurt (3.40)

18.30: (1.32) Hoffenheim (6.00) Greuther Furth (10.0)

20.30: (3.10) Leverkusen (3.50) RB Leipzig (2.47)

***odds are subject to change