Manchester City find themselves in a strange position at the moment. Their recent poor performance and defeat away to Southampton in the Carabao Cup triggered concern among the fanbase.
Though City played a rotated squad for the match, one would imagine that they would have enough quality regardless to put away the opposition but that was not the case.
By the end of the match, City had established starters like Kevin De Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan and Erling Haaland on the pitch but they couldn't even muster a shot on target against Southampton.
In the quest to find a reason for City’s recent misfortunes, some of the fanbase as well as neutrals believe that the addition of Erling Haaland to the team could have been one of the responsible factors.
At first, it does sound absurd to think that a player who has scored 21 league goals in 16 League games could be a problem for Manchester City but at the same time, crosstown rivals Manchester United had their worst season in the Premier League era with Cristiano Ronaldo as their top scorer.
Manchester City’s predicament is nowhere near as dire as United’s was last season but there are now questions being asked about it whether or not Haaland has improved City. It is a simple question but the answer may not be as simple.
HOW HAS HE AFFECTED GOALSCORING AND CREATION
Haaland’s incredible feats of goalscoring this season as well as the records he has broken already will not come as news to most fans of the Premier League.
His goal record has been sublime and naturally, the team will be built to make sure he gets as much service and score as many goals as possible. With this being the case, it is only natural that some players goal output will suffer as well.
Using Understat, we compared the number of goals as well as expected goals (xG) between this season and last season after 17 games played to see wether Haaland’s presence has made a good or bad impact.
After seventeen games last season, Manchester City had scored 40 goals from an xG of 40.86. That is only a slight underperformance of less than one goal. This season however, they have scored 45 goals with an xG sum of 38.99 which indicates overperformance of their xG by six goals.
When it comes to just the goals scored, you could say that Haaland has improved their tally by five goals which, in truth, is not much. When you then look at the expected goal sum, last season’s tally after 17 games shows that City‘s goalscoring level was sustainable. This season’s form however shows that there is a chance that City will suffer a slight dropoff in their goalscoring sooner or later.
Individually, Haaland has scored 21 goals in 16 appearances with an xG of 15.81. This shows that he is exceeding his own xG total by five goals. His individual overperformance coincides with the tally of his team which means that if Haaland is to go on a goal drought, the team as a whole will suffer.
At this point last season, none of the City players had reached double digits in goals with Bernado Silva leading the scoring charts with only seven. On the team there were three other players with four goals and two players with three goals on the team as well. It is not a high sum but it shows that the distribution of goals were somewhat equal.
This season, the closest player to Haaland on City’s scoring charts is Phil Foden with seven. The Englishman is currently out of favor with Riyad Mahrez and Jack Grealish the preferred starting options on the wings. Both players have scored a combined three league goals this season.
Julian Alvarez and Kevin De Bruyne have three goals to their names each while the rest of the squad has scored only two goals or under. It's important to note that Julian Alvarez, who is City’s joint third top scorer, has played the least amount of minutes of any Manchester City forward.
The dependence on Haaland is not necessarily a bad thing but City are currently struggling to get goals from anywhere else consistently.
On the assists side of things, City managed 25 assists in total with an expected assist (xA) total of 31.21 after 17 games played last season. The 6.21 xA underperformance indicates slightly wasteful finishing from players who were set up by teammates.
This season, they managed 36 assists from 31.83 xA. Their 4.17 xA overperformance is as a result of players maximizing their chances even when their teammates don't create high quality chances for them. This overperformance coincides with the presence of Haaland, who is able to and has scored all sorts of goals from different positions so far for City.
With the xG and xA numbers, the possibility exists that City will experience drop offs in goalscoring as a team and will also fail to create quality chances. In a title race where they are playing catch up, those moments will prove costly.
FINAL CONCLUSION
From what we have seen so far, Haaland does not make the team better, even though their scoring numbers are better than what it was last season.
Before Manchester City signed the Norwegian, they played without a striker and had an extra body in midfield for two years. Now that they signed a player with box presence, they lose that extra player in midfield and have to change the way they play.
Even though he has scored a boat load of goals this season, City are still trying to adapt to Haaland and Haaland is also trying to adapt to the style of play.
City are not as dominant this season as they were last season, despite having better numbers and even their defence has struggled as a result. At this point last season, Manchester City had only conceded nine goals while this season they have conceded 16.
City and Haaland seemed like a match made in heaven in the summer and they might still be exactly that. We have already seen what it looks like when it all comes together but there is still some ways to go.
It is possible that Haaland will break the League scoring record and still not end up a Premier League winner.