Pep Guardiola was right when he once called Tottenham "the Harry Kane team". However, seven years later, calling Manchester City "the Erling Haaland team" is no easy thing to dismiss.
The Citizens' defensive problems are obvious at the moment. They are especially vulnerable to counter-attacks. In their 6-game winless streak, Man City have had the majority of possession in every game. Specifically in terms of percentage, the numbers are 69, 65, 73, 61, 58 and 64 respectively.
In every match above, they had more shots on target than their opponents. 13 vs 10, 14 vs 10, 12 vs 8, 12 vs 8, 16 vs 9, 11 vs 8.
That means, in their six-game winless run, Man City have had a total of 78 shots on target compared to their opponents' 53. But in that time, they have scored just seven goals, while their opponents have scored 17.
In the last seven seasons - six of which have been title-winning seasons - Man City have averaged more than 2.5 goals per Premier League game. This season, they've averaged 1.8 goals per Premier League game. And an average of one of those goals has been Haaland.
Simply put, if Haaland doesn't hit his stride, the Premier League champions will be in trouble.
In his first two seasons in the Premier League, Haaland topped the scoring charts with 36 goals in the 2022-23 season and 27 goals in the 2023-24 season. In those seasons, Man City scored 94 and 96 Premier League goals respectively.
However, in the 2021-2022 campaign, they scored 99 goals without Haaland. And top scorer Kevin de Bruyne only had 15 goals.
The burden of scoring for Man City is falling on Haaland. The lack of goals from other players has directly affected their results. Phil Foden has not scored a Premier League goal this season, Bernardo Silva has also failed to score in the league since the beginning of January. Meanwhile, Jack Grealish has also not scored a Premier League goal in 2024 so far.
Before Haaland arrived, one of the impressive features of City under Guardiola was the way they shared the scoring load. Ilkay Gundogan was the top scorer in the 2020-21 Premier League-winning squad with 13 goals. City scored 106 goals in 2017-18, but Sergio Aguero's 21 was enough to make him their top scorer.
The obvious problem with Haaland is that if he doesn’t score, he doesn’t contribute much to the overall game. But in that context, Guardiola can’t write off the Norwegian either. And one of the Citizens’ priorities in the coming months will be to try to convince Haaland to extend his contract until the summer of 2027.
Guardiola needs to find a way to win games without being dependent on the form of one player. He needs to make it clear that Man City is not just Haaland's team.
