by When Pep Guardiola tearfully stated that Manchester City could not replace Sergio Agüero, who was leaving in May 2021, he not only created a meme. Guardiola was launching a global audition for his team’s new offensive talisman. An unsuccessful pursuit of Harry Kane in the summer of 2021 came between two title-winning seasons, in which Ilkay Gündogan (13) and Kevin De Bruyne (15) were the club’s top scorers in the league. Guardiola’s skilled creative machine needed a new leader, and they found one in Erling Haaland.
Like Aguero before him, and unlike many of City’s most successful signings of the Pep era, Haaland arrived as a bona fide superstar, a ready-made addition to an already stellar line-up. Whether she 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 around £300m. And although the measure had a sinister logic for City’s rivals, doubts still remained.
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When he arrived, aged just 21, Haaland had built his reputation on big numbers and raw physical attributes. Could he have a place in Guardiola’s sophisticated system, where players must fulfill multiple roles? And would his new coach break with tradition and remodel his team to accommodate an all-time goal scorer? It was a problem that he had experienced with Zlatan Ibrahimovic at Barcelona. The Swedish forward stated that Guardiola “bought a Ferrari, filled it with diesel and drove it around the countryside.”
Would Haaland also have difficulty reaching top speed? An awkward, if enthusiastic, performance in the Community Shield in August 2022 raised concerns, but his first league game at West Ham showed his killer instinct. Two precise runs behind: the first to win a penalty, which he converted, and the second to take advantage of a pass from Kevin De Bruyne and finish effortlessly. The doubts evaporated; the goals don’t. Haaland scored 36 goals in 35 league games in his debut season, a Premier League record.
The goals often came in dizzying bursts: three against Palace in 19 minutes, a lethal first-half hat-trick in the rout of Nottingham Forest. In the Manchester derby, another hat-trick achieved with dominant arrogance, exemplified by this shot from a perfect De Bruyne cross. This generational goalscorer had successfully assimilated into a team packed with creative talent and moved at will in Premier League defences. A goal against Brighton was almost comical because of the brute force of it, Haaland running onto an Ederson clearance and obliterating everyone in his path.
Guardiola does not build route one teams, but Haaland’s qualities offer City a second advantage, another key in the chain of breaking down defences. All but one of his 35 goals were scored from inside the area, where it is devastatingly accurate. Haaland may seem like a deceptively simplistic player (he’s very big and exceptionally fast), but he also has great offensive awareness and a knack for being in the right place at the right time.
From bursting into the public consciousness with nine goals in a match for the Norway under-20 team to taking his place at the top of our rankings, Haaland has maintained his youthful love of football, his desire to score without rest, any way I can. Take this acrobatic finish against poor Southampton, or the moment he pulled off a new achievement against Chelsea. “I’ve never scored with my balls before,” he happily revealed afterwards.
In the Champions League, Haaland went even harder as City claimed that hitherto elusive European trophy. In the group stage, against Dortmund, he scored the winning goal at the last moment by kicking the ball at head height. His most devastating goal this year came against Leipzig in the round of 16, scoring five goals in 35 minutes before being substituted, perhaps out of pity. Despite his scoring feats at the national level, Haaland seems to have an extra gear for Europe.
The 23-year-old’s scoring record in the Champions League is 40 goals in 35 games; He is one behind Agüero and has played less than half as many games as the Argentine. While Haaland became less prolific as City progressed towards the trophy, he remained a crucial presence. He scored twice in the quarterfinals against Bayern Munich, the second on a counterattack that ended the competition in the second leg in Germany. Haaland also created a key goal at the Etihad; After finding space on the left, he chose to cross for Bernardo Silva to head home and bring the hat-trick one step closer.
It was the sign of a subtle evolution, the target man modified his game to be more aligned with his teammates. In last season’s battles with title rivals Arsenal, Haaland assisted three goals and scored two as City put on a finishing clinic. He scored the fourth at the Etihad, the 49th of the season, having already relaxed, literally. It felt almost like a dig, an example of the sense of spontaneity Haaland has brought to a team often accused of lacking personality.
No doubt ambitious and driven by the pursuit of records and silver medals, Haaland still cuts an unusual figure as the game’s new global superstar. While another contender for the throne, Kylian Mbappé, has stagnated in PSG politics, Haaland seems incredibly relaxed and only makes headlines for his choice of casual clothing. If there were tactical doubts surrounding his move to City, signing him was a marketing no-brainer. Hero without problems for a club whose success and public image of him are more complicated, the striker with the world at his feet was also the boy in a sky blue shirt whose father, Alfie, played for Maine Road.
Loved by fans after 18 extraordinary months in Manchester, Haaland still has room to improve in this conquering team. Incredibly, there are still long periods in games where he can seem peripheral. His teammates could take better advantage of his pace and control in those small spaces behind the defense. He is yet to score against Brentford. On the international front, his failure to lead Norway to Euro 2024 was a disappointment. However, even in that area, he has 27 goals in 29 appearances. The numbers don’t lie.
Haaland finished his first season with 52 goals, including 36 in the Premier League, breaking a record that had not been touched since 1995. Even with City comparatively out of sync this season, his strike rate has barely dipped; In total, he currently has 71 goals in 75 games. He is already 12th on the club’s all-time top scorers list, and there is little reason to think the goals and trophies will stop any time soon. The question is not whether Haaland can stay on top of the world, but who on Earth can replace him.
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