Roy Keane's latest attack shows Erling Haaland is doing something right at Man City

Rule number one of football punditry: find a weakness, any weakness in Erling Haaland.

First it was his lack of touches for Manchester City, then it was his body language when he wasn't scoring, or his lack of goals in big games, and now he's apparently a League Two player in terms of his general play. This weekend, the author of that lazy League Two jibe, Roy Keane, called Haaland a spoiled brat.

Maybe it had something to do with Haaland insisting he 'didn't care' what 'that man' had to say. Or maybe Keane's personal history with the Haaland family. Surely not.

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Alfie Haaland replied to a post on X about Keane's comment with a simple laughing emoji. It seems that the family are not too concerned with Keane's odd obsession with firing shots at a striker with 36 goals to his name this season and 88 in total for City.

Keane had previously called Haaland a 'League Two striker' for his supposed lack of all-round play, yet his employers were trumpeting a touch map of Haaland's to show how effective he was against Wolves on Saturday (how the tables have turned), and Match of the Day dedicated a segment to his link-up with teammates before focusing on his four goals.

"The way he played was fantastic – especially in the second half," noted teammate Nathan Ake. "He held the ball up so well and made it difficult for the defenders. It helps us to get up the pitch too."

Keane's specific complaint on Sunday, completely unconnected with Haaland's shutdown of him the day before, was that Haaland and Pep Guardiola looked to have an argument when the striker was substituted against Wolves. Guardiola had already put the record straight, saying the striker's complaint was about a lack of fouls from the officials rather than being unhappy at coming off.

Even if he was, is that a bad thing? He will get over it, and Guardiola insists that he will take off his best players when City are leading comfortably, just as he told Kevin De Bruyne recently after a similar exchange.

"We saw Erling Haaland yesterday being brought off, not too happy, behaving like a spoilt brat," said Keane, seemingly unaware of the actual reason Haaland was unhappy. "But because Man City win the game and he scores goals, it's almost forgotten about."

This is the same Keane who famously thinks strikers should not be congratulated for scoring because 'it's their job', but now we should be focusing on what they do aside from putting the ball in the back of the net because that's overshadowing a criticism he wants to make.

The fact that Keane's 'League Two' comments were shut down so quickly shows that the rest of the Premier League can see what Haaland is doing. Saturday marked his 100th goal contribution for City in just 94 appearances, ending on 103 by the end of proceedings, at an average of a goal or assist every 73 minutes. He is now the quickest player to 60 Premier League goals, and no player (aside from Haaland himself last year) has more goals for City in a single season since 1941.

There is a definite argument to say that Haaland's form this season has been overlooked, simply because it hasn't been as brutally ruthless as last season. He got zero votes for the FWA Footballer of the Year award, for example (Diogo Dalot and Ross Barkley were nominated, though). But City are happy with his progress off the ball, and his mentality to be unhappy after scoring four is why he's got so many match balls in his collection.

Ironically, Guardiola's justification for Haaland's unhappiness cancels out another Keane criticism - that he offers nothing outside goalscoring. Yet here he was, pulling players out of position and unhappy that he wasn't getting free kicks.

Guardiola said: "There were a lot of long balls into the channels where he won the position and was being pulled by the opponent and it was never [given as] a foul. It happens every game a lot of times."

It was the same when he was criticised for not scoring against Real Madrid, yet he kept Antonio Rudiger, Aurelien Tchouameni and Nacho occupied for 180 minutes to keep City in their Champions League tie.

It's almost like Haaland, Guardiola and City know a little more about his role than the rest of us. If Keane's only response to Haaland's putdown is to call him a brat, it shows he is running out of sticks to beat him with.

Next thing you know, Haaland will be scoring too many goals.