At the start of this season, Pep Guardiola did what any other manager would probably have done in his situation. He assessed his squad, now shorn of Kevin De Bruyne, and concluded there was only one appropriate plan for the attack. This year would be Erling Haaland: To The Max.
A shining star in the center of the opposition penalty area, 10 orbiting bodies who must make sacrifices to satiate the deity. And the signs were that this was really working. Haaland was as good as he has ever been, an elemental force of scoring, the sheer weight of his gravity dragging Arsenal back into a title race.
There was always, though, a nagging fear. What happened if the light from the Haaland star faded? Over the last month, Manchester City have found out. One goal, a penalty against Brighton, from the big guy, no league win in 2026 and a title challenge that is in very real danger of falling apart before spring. It has been a five game run where Haaland has not looked like a top two footballer on the planet — maybe best, your mileage on Kylian Mbappe may vary — and it might be enough to end hopes of catching Arsenal atop the Premier League table.
If Arsenal beat Nottingham Forest then City will find themselves closer to Manchester United, who obliterated their chaotic rearguard en route to a 2-0 victory at Old Trafford this afternoon, than the leaders.
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Though Michael Carrick deserves huge credit for the fashion in which United attacked the day, they were only careening into holes that had been apparent in the City rearguard all season long. Expanded in the absence of Josko Gvardiol and Ruben Dias no doubt, but this has been the year of Guardiola dicing with danger defensively. He knew the opposition might score two. He seemed to trust that Haaland would get three.
Not today. Harry Maguire and Lisandro Martinez attacked the No.9 with ferocity. The 14 touches he had is not wildly out of the normal for Haaland, but so many of them seemed to be with his back to goal and a United center back smacking him on the shoulder. Two shooting chances around the 55th minute never even got to Senne Lammens, Maguire and Martinez hurling themselves in the direction of danger.
This was not a day where Haaland’s mere presence could shift a defense out of shape either, creating space for Phil Foden or Antoine Semenyo to let fly from. United’s banks of four plugged every gap, shutting down avenues for the sort of crosses that might have allowed Haaland to drift to the back post too. With Rayan Cherki on the bench for the first half, there was no one who could create something out of nothing in Kevin De Bruyne fashion. The ball cycled around the attacking third but no one was able to force a shooting chance for the big guy.
Haaland’s exit with 80 minutes played looked an admission of defeat from Guardiola, all the more so given his place was taken by 18-year-old, yet to score a senior goal, Divine Mukasa. It looked like Haaland needed a break. No wonder. Only five outfield players have more minutes under the belt across all competitions this season (one of them is his soon to be team mate Marc Guehi). The 2478 minutes he has logged is a full four hours more than any of his teammates. Haaland’s exploits might appear to be super human but until there is any compelling medical evidence to the contrary, we must conclude he is just a man. Perhaps a tired one at that.
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That might be the easiest explanation for why his output has waned of late. Since Christmas he has one goal, a penalty against Brighton. His shots per 90 minutes across all competitions have dipped from 4.21 to 3.29, his non-penalty xG cratering from 0.89 to 0.3. It used to be that Haaland would rarely if ever take a shot from outside the box. Now a full 30 percent of them are coming from range.
None of this necessarily tells you much other than Haaland being out of form. The most convincing explanation for this cold streak is not that defenders have figured him out, that his team mates aren’t clicking with him or anything else so dramatic. What is happening to him is just what happens to every single footballer, a bad run of form, in this case probably because he needs a break. Most teams would take this level of production from their center forward at any time.
City, however, aren’t most teams. They have geared themselves towards Haaland in the sort of fashion you usually associate with a relegation battler. Not Andy Johnson’s Crystal Palace. A much better version of Andy Johnson’s Crystal Palace. And as Haaland has struggled so has his team. At just the moment when they would usually begin their endgame push, they have faltered.
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They have not solved many of the issues that have lurked in the background for several years before crashing into the forefront 15 or so months ago. The defense was too reliant on the fitness of key individuals and right now none of Dias, Gvardiol or prime Rodri are coming around the corner to tighten things up. Guehi will only be able to do so much. Even if you flanked him with the big three defenders it would do little to address the issue of how easily opponents play through City in their own half of the pitch. A team as young as Guardiola’s should have had a bit more energy to chase down Maguire and Casemiro.
These are the sort of problems that Guardiola has coached his way out of before and might do again. He has earned the benefit of the doubt. After all, for so much of this season it looked like his latest gambit, to hand the keys to the team over to Haaland, might pay off in spectacular fashion for a team few expected to really to compete for first place this year.
Then again Guardiola must have known this might happen at some stage. If you live by Haaland’s goalscoring exploits, you might just die by them too. And today, City looked dead on their feet.
