What happened to Erling Haaland this season?
Erling Haaland, the striker from Manchester City began to be criticized by several pundits and often also received a lot of criticism from City fans themselves. Yes, given his outstanding performance last season, it is only natural that he began to reap criticism this season regarding his performance on the field where he is often considered not to contribute much to the team, especially in matches that can be considered important. Before starting to dissect his overall performance and what factors might have made him experience a decline in performance, here is a statistical comparison of seasons 22/23 and 23/24 so far.
It would be nice if we first understood his role as a target forward before talking further about his performance. A full discussion about his position as a target forward can be read in my previous article.
When a player’s performance declines, it’s often down to several different factors. This is especially true of Erling Haaland, who plays as a target forward. This role relies heavily on his teammates, so any criticism is likely to be well-founded. Here are some of the reasons, in my opinion, why Erling Haaland has come under so much scrutiny recently.
The first thing to consider is the shortage of forwards. Last year’s attacking players were Erling Haaland, Julian Alvarez, and Riyad Mahrez. Erling is a target forward, Alvarez is a combination striker, and Mahrez is a pure right winger. The winger position is pretty influential on the amount of ball supply to a target forward. It’s easier for a winger to provide a precise cross pass to the center of the penalty box to be executed by a target forward. Jack Grealish, who is basically a left winger, and Jeremy Doku, who is actually a pure right winger, are more likely to play as a left midfielder this season. And yes, the right-wing position for this season isn’t as good as the one filled by Riyad Mahrez last season.
Bernardo Silva is the one who mostly filled the right-side position, but he’s not a pure winger. He’s more likely to execute his own goals than feed the frontline. Riyad Mahrez didn’t get much game time last season, but his ability to provide options on the right, especially in crucial games, will certainly be felt this season. I thought Doku would be plotted like Mahrez given their similar playing positions, but in fact, Pep Guardiola prefers Doku to take on Grealish-like duties and tends to play more as a left midfielder. And like Bernardo Silva, Doku is more comfortable executing his own goals than making cross passes into the center. It may seem trivial, but the loss of a pure winger has more of an effect on target forwards in general.
The second thing to consider is that last season, the attacking midfield position was filled by Kevin De Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan, who often made forward passes to supply the target forward. But for this season, the CAMs are more focused on scoring goals and are more likely to provide ball supply to the midfield, which makes the supply to the front line even less. This is certainly not without reason. Haaland’s style of scoring goals, which is mostly inside the penalty box, makes the opposing defenders aware of his movements, limiting his options so that he cannot score. He scored a lot of goals last season, where all his goal-scoring variables were easily guessed by the opposing defenders. It would be very ineffective if the CAMs had to force a pass to Haaland in a position where he was locked by the defender. But as we know, Haaland can be plotted at any time to attract defenders and free up the midfielders, especially to score goals.
The third factor is that Erling Haaland has missed more chances this season than last. Last season, he made 28 missed chances from his 36 goals in the Premier League. This season, he has made 30 missed chances from his 20 goals. The number of goals he produced was less than the number of missed chances he made. Even so, he still has the chance to play 5–7 matches in the Premier League this season. I don’t know which will increase more, the number of his missed chances or the number of his goals. And back to the factor where midfielders began to rarely pass to Haaland, which was also supported by Haaland’s own frequent missed chances. Midfielders might think twice about just giving Haaland the ball, whether he’ll miss or do better than them. Missed chances can also give the opposition a chance to counter-attack, so it’s important to minimize that as much as possible.
If Erling Haaland wants to get back to scoring so many hattrick like last season, he’s got to work on himself to gain his teammates’ trust and not rely on them passing him the ball. It’s not easy, I know, but I think it’s the only way he can get back to his best. Let’s say it’s part of the way he develops, as he always says. This time, though, he has to work harder to develop. He can’t just rely on trust in the process. He also needs to find a way to get better and better all the time.
He should also know if playing as a striker, especially as a target forward under Pep Guardiola, is not that easy, instead is difficult. Guardiola might be more concentrated on his midfield players as we know if the engine of the game is located in midfield. And that’s why, whoever the striker is, who played in Guardiola’s system has somehow needed to do more so they could penetrate the good chances that were already being created by the midfielder into the scoreline.
