Is Erling Haaland going backwards at Man City?

Pep Guardiola famously struggles with No.9s and Erling Haaland is the latest example of a talnted striker that doesn't fit into his system.

If last season’s Premier League campaign proved anything it’s that winning the English top-flight often comes down to fine margins. Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal side dropped just 25 points over the course of 38 games and finished the 23/24 season with their highest points total in 20 years. And yet, Manchester City still seemingly steamrolled to another league title. As many Arsenal fans would have likely lamented at the time, their team would have more or less had to have achieved a truly perfect season to best Pep Guardiola’s side. 

Why Man City are such formidable opponents in the league comes down to a number of factors. The most obvious one is the simple fact that they have limitless funds and while such resources are rarely used to buy the biggest stars in the world, they are carefully spent across the world of football to ensure that Guardiola’s squad starts every season with at least one, but often two or even three, top-tier player in every position. The obsessive head coach knows that his system is only as good as its worst player and as such the Man City machine is reinforced from every angle to withstand what is often a war of attrition in the Premier League. 

However, there is one potential chink in the armour. One position that sticks out like a sore thumb when it comes to Man City’s rule of not being overly-reliant on any individual player. And, in stark contrast to the rest of the team, it seems to be a problem that is only growing in size and scope with every passing season. That problem is Erling Haaland and the growing concern that Guardiola seems incapable of getting the very best out of one of the most talented strikers in the world. 

Before we dive into the nitty-gritty of all this, it’s worth contextualising that statement. Haaland is still undoubtedly one of the best strikers in the world and does a fabulous job of sticking the ball in the back of the net. No less than 90 goals and 15 assists in 98 games for the English club should make that perfectly clear. But as I said a moment ago, the Premier League title is one that can be won or lost on fine margins. And one such area that could see Guardiola’s side relinquish their title as English champions in the next 10 months could be the minor but undoubtedly notable manner in which Haaland’s game has diminished since making the move to Manchester. 

A frustrated cog in a bigger machine 

Guardiola’s history with No.9s is well documented and his preferences for strikers that drop deep or drift out wide in favour of more orthodox goalscorers is synonymous with his tactics and the way his teams tend to play. As such, many wondered how Haaland would fit into Guardiola’s side when he joined the club in 2022. The simple answer to that question is that the young forward slotted in perfectly well and bagged 38 goals and six assists in 45 games across all competitions. Such a return won the Norwegian striker the Premier League Player of the Year and Premier League Young Player of the Year awards. The towering striker was a crowning success. But something has changed since then.

In his second season at the club, we’ve seen Haaland’s role in Guardiola’s team become far more limited. Much has been made of Haaland’s non-penalty goals average dipping from 0.94 per 90 in 22/23 down to 0.71 per 90 in 23/24, but what intrigues me far more than that is the manner in which Haaland’s movement across the pitch was seemingly reduced dramatically within Guardiola’s system. After all, there’s far more to Haaland’s game than simply getting on the end of crosses and passes to stick the ball in the back of the net. And as we can see in the above DataMB radar of Haaland’s first season (pink) and second season (blue) at Man City, the player has seemingly gone backwards.

This is most evident when we take a look at how many touches of the ball Haaland averaged per game. When we plot the player’s total touches per game in open play over the last five seasons, we can see a dramatic drop off since joining Man City. To the point that Haaland’s touches of the ball have dropped by a remarkable 33% since his final season at Dortmund. But what’s interesting about that drop off is that when we consider Haaland’s touches of the ball in the box, his numbers actually rose slightly in his first season at Man City and only dropped by around 9% this season. The biggest drop off actually came outside the box, where Haaland’s touches in the final third last season were 19% lower than his final season at Dortmund and his touches in the middle third of the pitch had almost halved entirely. 

What seems to have happened over the course of the 23/24 season - either by design or sheer coincidence - is that Haaland’s influence in the final third diminished quite dramatically and reduced him to little more than a penalty-box striker. Which would be entirely fine if the towering Norwegian talent had very few strings to his bow. But in reality, despite what seems to be a growing narrative around the player, Haaland is in fact much more than just a pure goalscorer. In Austria and Germany, Haaland was a player that happily drifted out wide to run the lines, could readily dribble by defenders and, perhaps most notably, come deep only to then outsprint even the quickest central defenders with direct balls over the top. And at RB Salzburg, Dortmund and even Man City he has shown that he can be a player that creates goals too. 

Fewer touches of the ball at all and certainly fewer touches of it in the middle or final third means that Haaland’s ability to create goals for his team mates is severely reduced. To no great surprise considering the numbers noted above, Haaland’s progressive passes (a pass that moves the ball 10 feet closer to the opposing goal) have halved per game from his first season at Man City to this most recent one, while his passes into the penalty area have gone from a career high of 1.13 per 90 in his final season at Dortmund to just 0.39 per 90 last season. When we filter all of that down to the most important passing stat of them all, we find that Haaland’s assists per 90 have dropped from 0.38 per 90 in 21/22, to 0.26 per 90 last season and then down to just 0.18 per 90 this season. Which means the forward Man City spent so much time and effort signing is now only creating goals at half the rate he was at his previous club. 

These numbers may seem rather insignificant in isolation, but it’s worth bearing in mind how much those average assist numbers have made up Haaland’s total goal contributions in his career to date. As we can see in the graph above, in his final season at Dortmund no less than 34% of his total tally for the season came from assists but that number has now dropped down to just 20%. And when coupled with the fact that Haaland scored nine fewer non-penalty goals in the league this season, it’s not hard to appreciate why more assists to his name could have compensated for a drop off in goals. Equally, when we compare Haaland to other top tier strikers across Europe we find that his six assists in all competitions falls notably short of Kylian Mbappe (10), Harry Kane (12) and even more traditional No.9s like Robert Lewandowski (nine). 

The reasons behind Haaland’s more constricted role in Man City’s system are hard to pinpoint. The player did struggle with injuries over the course of the league campaign, missing seven games in total. So a lack of fitness or match sharpness could have led to him simply being unable to get across the pitch as he’s used to. And it should be noted that half of his eight assists in the league the season before were to set up goals for Ilkay Gundogan, who departed for Barcelona last summer, and Kevin de Bruyne, who spent much of this season injured. As much as Phil Foden formed a formidable partnership with Haaland this season, the England international doesn’t make the same powerful runs into the box quite like Gundogan or De Bruyne. And perhaps with the Belgian international back in the team next season, Haaland may finally have someone to pass the ball back to in the opposing box. 

There’s also the glaringly obvious fact that Man City are essentially too dominant on the pitch for a striker like Haaland. Unlike in Salzburg or Dortmund, where Haaland could routinely get on the end of exciting counter-attacks, Guardiola’s team simply don’t enjoy speeding up the pace of games and turning them into box-to-box duels. Which is, clearly, Guardiola’s prerogative. But it does then raise the question over the need for a player of Haaland’s many talents in a system that doesn’t seem too interested in getting the very best out of him. Like a Ferrari bought to crawl down to the local supermarket every morning, the 23-year-old star looks more and more like a severely underused talent in a system that doesn’t need him. 

Ultimately, none of this may even matter next season. And it seems truly remarkable that a striker can score 27 goals in 31 league games and finish the season with question marks hanging over his performances. But while Haaland has undoubtedly done all he can for Man City, there are now some clear indicators that suggest that Man City and their manager may not be doing all they can for him. And while the drop off in assists and touches outside the box may be difficult to notice, they are fine margins that seem to be growing with every passing season. And those small numbers have a habit of adding up to bring down league challengers. Just ask Arsenal.