When Pep Guardiola tearfully claimed Manchester City could not replace the departing Sergio Agüero in May 2021, he didn’t just create a meme. Guardiola was soft-launching a global audition for his team’s new attacking talisman. An unsuccessful pursuit of Harry Kane in the summer of 2021 came between two title-winning seasons where Ilkay Gündogan (13) and Kevin De Bruyne (15) were the club’s top league goalscorers. Guardiola’s slick creative machine needed a new front man, and they found him in Erling Haaland.
Like Agüero before him – and in contrast to many of City’s most successful Pep-era signings – Haaland arrived as a bona fide superstar, a plug-and-play addition to an already stellar lineup. Whether he was a bargain is another question. The release clause paid was €60m (£51.2m), but some reports suggest Haaland’s five-year deal could cost the club in the region of £300m. And while there was an ominous logic to the move for City’s rivals, questions remain.
Just 21 when he arrived, Haaland had built his reputation on big numbers and raw physical attributes. Could he hold a place in Guardiola’s sophisticated system, where players are required to fulfill multiple roles? And would his new manager break with tradition and reshape his team to accommodate an all-out goalscorer? It was a problem he had experienced with Zlatan Ibrahimovic at Barcelona. The Swedish striker said Guardiola “bought a Ferrari, filled it up with diesel and drove it round the countryside”.
Would Haaland also struggle to hit top gear? An awkward, if enthusiastic display in the Community Shield in August 2022 raised concerns, but in his first league match at West Ham he displayed his killer instinct. Two precise runs in behind – the first to win a penalty, which he converted, and the second to spring on to a Kevin De Bruyne pass and finish effortlessly. The doubts evaporated; the goals did not. Haaland went on to score 36 times in 35 league appearances in his debut season – a Premier League record.
The goals often came in giddying bursts – three against Palace in 19 minutes, a lethal first-half hat-trick in a rout of Nottingham Forest. In the Manchester derby, another hat-trick delivered with dominant swagger, typified by this lunging finish to De Bruyne’s perfect cross. This generational goalscorer had successfully assimilated into a team stacked with creative talent, and was dunking on Premier League defenses at will. One goal against Brighton was almost comical in its brute force, Haaland racing on to an Ederson clearance and bulldozing everyone in his path.
Guardiola does not build route-one teams, but Haaland’s qualities offer City a second edge, another key on the chain to unpick defenses. All but one of his 35 goals were scored from inside the box, where he was devastatingly accurate. Haaland can look like a deceptively simple player – he is very big, and exceptionally fast – but he also has great attacking awareness, a knack for being in the right place at the right time.