Gary Lineker uncovers key Erling Haaland trait that makes him a 'more perfect striker' than Harry Kane

Gary Lineker has highlighted a key difference between Erling Haaland and Harry Kane by labelling the Manchester City star the “perfect striker”.

Ironically, Kane He was set to succeed Sergio Aguero in Manchester City's attack in 2021, but the expensive signing of the then Tottenham striker never materialised.

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Now, Kane stars Bayern Munich and Haaland, who signed for Manchester City from Borussia Dortmund In 2022, he is already signing off on a third consecutive impressive season for Pep Guardiola's team.

The Norwegian got a hat-trick against Ipswich on Saturday in his team's 4-1 victory, a game that Lineker and his The rest is football podcast co-hosts Alan Shearer and Micah Richards discussed in this week's episode.

Former City star Richards mentioned that Kane could drop back and feature in England's Euro 2024 game, before stressing that Haaland is not interested in doing that and has opted to stay upfield.

And Lineker believes this will allow Haaland to be more profitable in front of goal.

The former England striker said: “I think it also highlighted the importance of the way Haaland plays and plays so high.

“Because if you constantly rotate backwards, defenders will get nervous and back off a little bit more.

“Therefore, their midfielders will have more space at the back.

“Whereas if he stays 20 yards in midfield, it actually overwhelms him even more and there is no space for those midfield players.

“That’s why it’s very important.”

And he believes that if Kane adopted Haaland's positioning, he would score more goals.

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He continued: “I think we spoke about this in the summer with England, because Kane likes to go down.

“But if he can stay higher up then you can create a bit of space at the back. I think he does that brilliantly and he's that perfect striker who has enough patience.

“He doesn't care if he touches it ten or fifty times during the match. What matters to him is how many times he touches it and puts it in the net.”

However, Kane's goals last season were nothing to sneeze at.

The England captain scored a whopping 44 goals in 45 games in all competitions in his debut campaign in Germany.

He has already scored this season, netting against Ulm in a 4-0 win in the first round of the DFB Cup. He also provided two assists in the 3-2 win over Wolfsburg on Sunday.

Haaland, meanwhile, scored 38 times in 45 games last season and already has four to his name this campaign.