Erling Haaland is Pep Guardiola's unsolvable Man City problem and their best chance of beating Real Madrid

Erling Haaland is Pep Guardiola's unsolvable Man City problem and their best chance of beating Real Madrid originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

Erling Haaland has scored 153 goals in 187 appearances for Manchester City, placing him joint-fourth on their historic scoring charts alongside club legend Colin Bell. If the Norway superstar sees out his gargantuan contract that runs until the end of June 2034, he will overhaul the club record of 260 set by Sergio Aguero with something to spare.

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Haaland has won two Premier League titles, scooping the Golden Boot in both of those seasons. He was also the top scorer in the UEFA Champions League in 2022/23, which City won for the first time as part of a treble. That year, he also broke the Premier League single-season scoring record and, in December 2025, became the fastest player to 100 goals in the competition's history. He is on course for a third Premier League Golden Boot in four years. In all competitions, he has 11 City hat-tricks.

It's worth highlighting all of this at the top of an article like this as full disclosure. Any criticism can feel Monty Python-esque: "But apart from that, what has Erling Haaland ever done for Manchester City?" If Pep Guardiola's side have any chance of overturning their 3-0 Champions League deficit at home to Real Madrid on Tuesday night, it has plenty to do with having a truly generational goalscoring talent in their ranks. 

Yet, at the same time, almost four years into 'Project Haaland' for City and Guardiola, it feels fair to ask whether things should just be… better?

MORE:Real Madrid vs. Man City head-to-head history, all UEFA Champions League matches over the years

Despite the phenomenal statistical records outlined above, questions regarding whether Guardiola is using Haaland correctly, whether Haaland is suited to Guardiola and whether he and his teammates are getting the best out of one another are incessant after every sub-par performance. There have been a few of those lately.

In City's past five games across all competitions, their only wins came in the two games where Haaland did not play. He remains atop the Premier League scoring charts, but has just four goals in his past 18 games across all competitions. It's apparently hard for the conversation to settle on the reality of a player simply experiencing a dip in form, as he has to some extent each winter of his City career. That's such a boring, human thing for a brutal goalscoing robot to experience. 

Instead, the discourse goes back and forth on whether City are better or worse with their only inarguably world-class player right now. Haaland is at once the most obvious solution to City's problems in what the cool kids call the new "tactical meta" and a symbol of some sort of existential woe for Guardiolisme within this reality.

Here's the fun thing: even if Haaland scored five times in a 5-0 win for City over Real Madrid or Antonio Rudiger pockets him in a 0-0 draw, the argument will never be settled. Not now, not ever.

Does Haaland suit Pep Guardiola's football?

After four years, plenty of success and some more recent failures, the obvious answer is no. Of course, Haaland doesn't suit Pepball. Have you seen him in a rondo?

Outside of his outrageous goalscoring capabilities, he does not and cannot offer a huge amount to a Guardiola team. In this more direct version of the Premier League, he has proved to be a very good outlet at times as a traditional target man, even if he his latest Rudiger ordeal showed there is plenty of room for improvement. When he has space to stretch his long limbs and power towards open spaces and terrified defenders, he is a truly thrilling sight.

But Guardiola's football is ultimately based around attacking small spaces and defending big ones. And he's right to stick to his guns and adapt accordingly. If Guardiola just gave up and started playing like everybody else, what would be the point of him?

In those small pockets where mastercraftsmen such as David Silva and Ilkay Gundogan have previously done their thing in sky blue, Haaland is cumbersome on his worst days and competent on his best. His sheer size means he can be a menace off the ball, but cannot press relentlessly. Jackhammering after opponents like prime Raheem Sterling or a younger Bernardo Silva is not physiologically possible. He has a sixth sense for movement in the penalty area, yet City fans often complain about his reluctance to ever attack the near post. The succession of balls Jeremy Doku sent scuttling across the goalmouth during last week's Santiago Bernabeu defeat was another source of frustration.

Ultimately, Guardiola decides this is always worth the hassle in a way he hasn't always with other great strikers. John Stones playing as a hybrid central defender/midfielder during the treble run was the best example of him establishing his desired control through other means and just letting Erling be Erling.

Erling Haaland season-on-season record at Man City

SeasonAppearancesGoalsGoals per 902022/2353521.142023/2445380.842024/2548340.762025/2641290.88

Robert Lewandowski and Sergio Aguero are among the finest forwards of their era. But when Lewandowski scored a mind-bending five goals in the space of nine minutes for Guardiola's Bayern against Wolfsburg in September 2015, he did so having come off the bench at halftime because the Catalan started without a recognised centre-forward. He did the same thing in his first year at City, dropping Aguero for a trip to face Barcelona and the Argentina international spent much of 2017 battling with Gabriel Jesus for a starting berth, not always successfully.

Guardiola clearly puts Haaland on a higher plane. A model professional, when he is fit, he plays and the team must work around that. The sense that City are still having to work around him feels problematic in itself, though.

MORE:Pep Guardiola repeats key message to Erling Haaland after 100th Premier League goal for Man City

Could Man City be better without Haaland?

When Haaland arrived from Borussia Dortmund in 2022, he was viewed as the final piece in the puzzle. A goals demon bolted on to a team that had been the best in Europe in the previous two seasons but had fallen agonisingly short in the Champions League. There were teething problems, but 52 goals in 53 appearances and a clean sweep of the big prizes represented pretty high-end orthodontistry.

City are still picking up the pieces from what happened after winning the treble. A couple of botched summer transfer windows and Guardiola's decision to stay loyal to the ageing core of players who had given everything for him put an implosion in the post. They held off Arsenal for a historic fourth Premier League title in a row in 2023/24, a triumph that owed more to individually outstanding seasons from Phil Foden and Rodri, along with some clutch Haaland moments, than any collective excellence. The collapse arrived in winter 2024 and swift corrective action followed over the next three transfer windows.

Including breakthrough star Nico O'Reilly, there are 11 new first-team fixtures in the City dressing room compared to last January (12 if you count place-filling third-choice goalkeeper Marcus Bettinelli). Jeremy Doku and Savinho signed prior to that, but they, along with Omar Marmoush, Tijjani Reijnders, Rayan Cherki and Antoine Semenyo, are attacking talents who joined Guardiola's team after Haaland was in the building, most of them after he signed that mammoth contract.

It's hard to escape the conclusion that this should all fit together better, especially with 21st-century football's great problem solver at the helm. This attacking collective has been compiled around Haaland, but seems stifled by him. 

In the year before Haaland joined, Guardiola's false-nine City often touched footballing perfection as they were pushed to the limit by Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool in a breathless Premier League finale. The collapse of a move for Harry Kane meant Guardiola had no Aguero replacement for 2021/22. Gabriel Jesus returned from the Copa America having decided he was, for now, a right winger. Ferran Torres played as the central attacker early in the campaign before having his head turned and moving to Barcelona in January 2022.

It left Foden, Bernardo, De Bruyne, Gundogan, Sterling, Jesus, Jack Grealish and Riyad Mahrez to share around the goals and false nine duties to fine effect. The team's final tally of 99 league goals scored is yet to be surpassed in the Haaland era. It's an idle thought, and not a suggestion that the current crop match that ensemble, but could a combination of Marmoush, Semenyo, Foden, Cherki, Reijnders, Doku and Savinho do the same? With Haaland as the focal point and that septuple usually battling over two starting spots, we'll probably never find out. Guardiola's great gift has always been improving elite talents above and beyond their presumed capabilities. It's hard to see how he manages this with Haaland's attacking teammates today, plenty of whom feel like they have stagnated or regressed. Whether or not he'll be around next season to finesse things is another intriguing ingredient in the stew.

All of this chatter isn't going away. This week, against Real Madrid in Manchester and Arsenal at Wembley, Haaland will relish proving all over again that he's worth the hassle.

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