An over-reliance on Haaland, faltering Foden - why Man City's attack is falling apart this season

Manchester City’s recent woes continued on Saturday, when Brighton came from behind to beat the reigning Premier League champions 2-1 at the American Express Stadium. Following defeats in the League Cup and Champions League, the weekend’s result now means that Pep Guardiola has lost four consecutive matches for the first time in his managerial career. And with Man City now sitting five points off first-placed Liverpool in the league table, it has led many to wonder what has gone wrong for the club that has won six of the last seven league titles in England’s top flight. 

Despite having one of the most expensively assembled squads of all time, Guardiola has been forced to call up a number of players from the club’s youth teams due to a somewhat unprecedented number of injuries to key players. Against Brighton, the Man City manager was without Rúben Dias, Manuel Akanji, John Stones, Rodri, Jérémy Doku and Jack Grealish. "We are not able to do 90 minutes right now,” said Guardiola after the 2-1 defeat. “We played a really good first half and moments in the second half. We lost again so clean our heads, international break and hopefully our players come back fit.” 

However, while Man City are undoubtedly missing key players, their starting XI on Saturday still had a combined market value of €645 million - which was almost three times more than Brighton’s starting XI, which stood at just €231.4m. Something else seems to be wrong with Guardiola’s team this season and it may in fact be down to the stars that Guardiola can still call upon, rather than the ones that have been out injured and missed much of this tricky start to the new season. 

Haaland: more goals, fewer points 

What was unfortunately overshadowed by the result on Saturday was the fact that Erling Haaland’s first-half goal allowed the Norwegian striker to break yet another Premier League record, by becoming the fastest player in the league’s history to reach 75 goals in the competition. The striker’s 12th goal from his first 11 league games of the season now means that Haaland has scored 75 Premier League goals in 77 games - which blew away the previous record held by Alan Shearer, when the Newcastle striker achieved the feat in 93 games. However, while Haaland’s goalscoring unquestionably remains remarkable, it has become something of a double-edged sword for Guardiola’s team this season. 

Indeed, while Haaland certainly can’t be blamed for sticking the ball in the back of the net, there has undoubtedly been an over-reliance on the Norwegian strike to do exactly that for Man City this season. This becomes abundantly clear when we consider that Man City’s next highest goalscorers in the Premier League this season are defensive midfielder Mateo Kovacic and defender Josko Gvardiol, who both have three goals to their name. Rather remarkably, no other outfield player aside from Stones has more than one goal for Man City in the league this season. With only Doku and Kevin De Bruyne so far scoring one apiece for Guardiola’s side. 

What this means is that Haaland has become Man City’s only source of goals. So far this season the towering striker has contributed a remarkable 55% of his team’s goals in the Premier League. Not only is that the highest share for any player in the English top-flight this season, but it’s also Haaland’s highest tally since he started playing in Europe’s top five leagues. As we can see in the graph above, even when the Norwegian talent was scoring goals for fun in the Bundesliga for Borussia Dortmund, his share of his teams’ goals only reached 36%. But that figure has leaped to new levels this season and that must be a huge concern for Guardiola. 

The Foden factor 

One of the most curious mysteries surrounding Man City’s inconsistent start to the season revolves around Phil Foden’s dreadful run of form in the first 11 games of the new Premier League season. To date, the England international has failed to score a single goal and managed just one assist in eight appearances for the club. When we break that down to a per game average, it works out at Foden going from averaging 0.85 goals or assists per 90 minutes in last season’s Premier League to just 0.20 per 90 this time around.

That, in other words, is a 76% drop in goal contributions for Guardiola’s side and undoubtedly a leading factor in why Haaland seems to stand alone as Man City’s only goal threat this season. Foden was a key figure in Man City’s previous league campaign and was eventually awarded with the  PFA Players' Player of the Year award for the manner in which he had stepped in for the injured De Bruyne and became Guardiola’s key playmaker in the middle of the pitch. But a few factors have undoubtedly hindered his form this time around. 

Perhaps the most obvious one is simply match fitness, with the England international missing three of Man City’s first four games of the season after recovering from an illness and since then the attacking midfielder has started just four of the following seven games. As the graphic above shows, while Foden was a more or less ever-present member of Guardiola’s team last season by averaging 82 minutes per appearance in the Premier League, that figure has since dropped down to 58 minutes per appearance. When we couple that with the fact that Foden has withdrawn from international duty for this current break, it points to a player that is still working his way up to full fitness. 

The other problem is the Rodri-shaped hole in the middle of Man City’s defence. While the Spaniard is often defined as a midfield enforcer, Rodri was an extremely underrated playmaker for Guardiola’s side last season and actually finished the campaign De Bruyne and Doku in the table for most assists in the league campaign. Not only did Rodri directly assist two of Foden’s 19 goals in the Premier League last season, but he also pulled the strings that led to a number of players setting up the young England international to either score or create a goal. So while a fully-fit Foden may offer an extra dimension to Man City’s attack after the international break, Guardiola’s team may not return to their former heights in an attacking sense until their Spanish midfield conductor returns from his long-term injury.