Sébastien Haller is a French footballer currently playing for the Dutch Eredivisie club FC Utrecht. At a young age of 21, he has been hailed as the next big thing in the French football and comparisons have already started with the legendary Thierry Henry (his fellow countryman).
History
Haller started his footballing career in his native France by being a part of some local clubs before making a leap to French side Auxerre in 2007 and signed a professional contract with them in 2011. However, it took him slightly more than a year to make his debut for the senior team when he played against the Ligue 2 side Nimes in the opening game of the 2012-13 season of Ligue 2.
After having a quiet stint at the French side, in 2014 December, he was signed on loan by the Eredivisie club FC Utrecht. This was his first chance to play in the top tier league of any country. Within six months, he made a mark while playing in the Eredivisie where he struck 11 times in 17 appearances. His performances also led to him winning the Di Tommaso Trophy in 2015 (the trophy for FC Utrecht’s player of the season). At the end of the season, Haller made a permanent move to the club.
He has also represented the National team at the U-16, U-17, U-18, U-19, U-20 & U-21 levels including representation at the U-17 FIFA World Cup in 2011 where he played a crucial role in his team’s progress to the quarter-finals, scoring the second goal against Argentina at the group stage.
Again at the U-21 level, he has already found the net 7 times in 12 appearances. Having represented the Les Blues at the youth level, it is only a matter of time when he gets a call from the senior side. He could be a natural replacement to fill in the vacuum created post-Henry’s retirement.
Style, strength and weakness
He is a natural centre-forward. Standing tall at 6 feet 2 inches, he has a powerful aerial presence which makes him a threat in the opposition’s six-yard box, especially during set-piece situations. This is also evident from the fact that on an average he won 5.6 aerial duels. He is a good finisher and has a good goals to shots conversion ratio of 0.2.
Further, he has a high ratio of driving the shots to targets with 0.49 shots on target to total shots ratio, given the fact that most of his shots are fired from outside the six-yard box. He also likes to contribute defensively during set-pieces also having a decent average tackling and interception rate of 0.7 and 0.5 respectively from the standards of a striker.
His main weakness lies in the passing domain with a poor pass accuracy of 62%. Moreover, he doesn’t like to pass the ball too much especially on the ground and often seen going for long balls which sometimes kills decent moves. Further, he is not a great dribbler and is often dispossessed of the ball.
His versatility could be another weakness as neither he can be deployed on the wing nor he can be deployed behind the striker. These are evident from the facts that he has a poor crossing rate of only 0.3 per game coupled up with a low number of key passes made (one per game) and number of through balls (0.1 per game).
His discipline on the field could also be an asset as he doesn’t foul opponents and avoids picking up unnecessary bookings even though he has been sent off once this season.
Stats
In the ongoing campaign, Haller has scored 13 league goals in 24 league appearances including braces against Feyenoord, Zwolle and Heracles while adding another five in four appearances at the KNVB Beker Cup including a hattrick against Achilles 29. In addition, to this, he has also assisted in three goals in the league, while picking up four Man of the Match awards.
Transfer situation
In the recently concluded January transfer season, Haller was linked to a move to Premier League with as many as five clubs trying for his signature.
Southampton, Bournemouth, Sunderland, Aston Villa and Norwich City, and the Canaries, in particular, stepped up their interest to sign the French hitman for 6.5 million pounds which eventually didn’t materialize. But during the upcoming season, he could be hot property for the clubs looking for a cheap option to solve their problems upfront.
