Coach Pep Guardiola was right when he once called Tottenham "the Harry Kane team". However, 7 years later, if Manchester City were called "the Erling Haaland team", this could not be easily dismissed.
The Citizens' defensive problems are clear at the moment. They are especially vulnerable to the opponent's counter-attacks. In a 6-match winless streak, Man City always holds most of the possession in every match. Specifically in terms of percentage, the numbers are 69, 65, 73, 61, 58 and 64 respectively.
In all of the above matches, they have 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 a 6-match winless streak, Man City have had a total of 78 shots on target compared to 53 of their opponents. But in that time, they have scored just seven goals, while their opponents have scored 17.
In the last 7 seasons - 6 of which were championship seasons - Man City have scored an average of more than 2.5 goals per Premier League match. This season, they have scored an average of 1.8 goals per Premier League match. And an average of one of those goals has been for Haaland.
Simply put, if Haaland is not at his best, 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 2022-23 and 27 in 2023-24. 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 has only scored 15 goals.
The burden of Man City's goalscoring is falling on Haaland. The lack of goals from other players has directly affected their results. Phil Foden has not scored any goals in the Premier League this season, Bernardo Silva has also failed to score in the tournament since the beginning of January. Meanwhile, Jack Grealish has also failed to score in the Premier League in 2024 so far.
Before Haaland's arrival, one of the impressive features of Man City under Guardiola was the way they shared the scoring responsibility. In the 2020-2021 Premier League winning squad, Ilkay Gundogan is the top scorer with 13 goals. In the 2017-2019 season, Man City scored 106 goals, but 21 goals were enough to make Sergio Aguero a top scorer.
The obvious problem for Haaland is that if he does not score, this striker will not contribute significantly to the overall play. But in that context, Guardiola could not rule out the Norwegian. And one of the priorities for The Citizens 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 relying on the form of a certain player. He needs to make it clear that Man City is not just Haaland's team.
