'Give Erling Haaland the ball and he will score' had proved to be a pretty effective tactic for Manchester City over the previous two months, but Aston Villa have exposed its flaws. They found a way to blunt the Norwegian's edges on Sunday, ending Haaland's run of scoring in 12 matches in a row for club and country while also becoming the first team to keep a clean sheet against Pep Guardiola's side in nine games.
Villa are far from the only team to have noticed that stopping Haaland means stopping City this season, but they were the first ones to see their plan through. It should be said that Unai Emery's side were a touch fortunate, and on another day Haaland might have scored. However, Haaland instead fired straight at Emi Martinez when played in by Bernardo Silva before heading a late cross straight at the Argentine goalkeeper. He even managed to find the net at the death, clattering into the post in the process, but the goal was ruled out by a marginal offside against Omar Marmoush.
It was a reminder that, contrary to what you might think looking at the jaw-dropping runs of form throughout his career, Haaland does not actually score all the time and cannot be expected to either. And unless City come up with a contingency plan, they will not be able to win the title back.
AFP'Put the ball in the net'
Guardiola's diagnosis of the game was that City had not played badly and simply failed to take their chances: "It was just the finishing. Put the ball in the net. We made a more than good game, we were impressive. We played against a very good team. Sixteen shots [it was actually 18] not bad, in general a hard match, little details. The spirit in the side was really, really good. We (only) missed the last action to shoot better, to cross better."
Villa boss Emery, meanwhile, said his team "needed everything to stop him" when asked how they had nullified Haaland. The coach took a physical approach, adding more height in midfield with Amadou Onana alongside Boubacar Kamara while encouraging his centre-backs Ezri Konza and Pau Torres to double up on the Norwegian, who had just four touches in the hosts' box.
It's an approach many managers have taken before, only for City's other stars to capitalise on the extra space. But that did not happen on Sunday.
AdvertisementGetty Images SportArgument doesn't add up
Half of City's 18 attempts on goal were blocked by Villa's stubborn defence. Of the nine attempts that made it towards goal, Haaland had three of them, getting all of them on target.
Josko Gvardiol and Tijjani Reijnders both missed the target twice while Matheus Nunes also had a stray shot, and the only other player to actually test Martinez in addition to Haaland was Savinho. Bernardo Silva and Oscar Bobb had zero attempts and so too did Jeremy Doku, who got more than half an hour from the bench.
So if Guardiola felt the only problem was his team not putting the ball in the net, then only Haaland and Savinho were to blame. That seems unfair, and instead the coach needs to ensure that other players are also taking on the burden of scoring.
Getty Images SportLack of support
The trend of leaving it to Haaland did not begin at Villa Park. When Bernardo scored City's second goal against Villarreal in the Champions League on Tuesday, he interrupted a run of eight consecutive goals that had been scored by Haaland.
The last player other than Haaland to score for City in the league was Burnley's Maxime Esteve one month ago. That leads us to an awkward fact about City's leading scorer behind Haaland in league games: It's Esteve, who scored two own goals when City blitzed the Clarets 5-1.
While Haaland has a chart-topping 11 goals in the Premier League, only four of his team-mates have managed to score at all. Phil Foden, Rayan Cherki, Reijnders and Nunes are the lucky ones to have found the net while neither of the team's two main wide forwards, Savinho and Doku, have hit the mark.
Foden and Doku, meanwhile, are the only players aside from Haaland to have scored in City's three Champions League fixtures to date.
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Haaland outscoring his team-mates to a large degree is not a new phenomenon. In his first season at City, he scored a record-breaking 36 Premier League goals and a frankly ridiculous 52 in all competitions. But despite that being his most brutal campaign to date, he was not doing it all alone. In fact, City won the treble because all the other big hitters also had rip-roaring campaigns.
Six other players scored at least five goals in the league, with Foden notching 11 and Julian Alvarez nine. Ilkay Gundogan got eight and Kevin De Bruyne seven, as well as a bucket load of assists. Haaland drew blanks in the FA and Champions League finals but City still took home the trophies thanks to Gundogan and Rodri scoring at Wembley and the Ataturk Stadium, respectively.
When City won a fourth consecutive title the following season, Haaland's team-mates further reduced the burden on him. His 28 goals were still enough to land him a second Golden Boot, but Foden stepped up with 19 strikes, Alvarez got 11 and even Rodri, ostensibly a holding midfielder, got eight. Opponents knew that if Haaland didn't get them, then someone else would.
