Is Erling Haaland playing well? Assessing Man City striker's form as goals dry up amidst Premier League drought

This is a similar pattern to previous seasons for Haaland at both Man City and previously at Borussia Dortmund, where he enjoys a furious start to the campaign before struggling to finish the season strong.

Last season (2024/25), Haaland scored 10 goals in the first five matches of the season, almost half of his entire season-long tally, and had 19 by February 2, before a dry end to the campaign. In the 2023/24 season, Haaland scored 14 goals in the first 13 games of the season, before a four-month spell that included four goals in 11 games plus a five-match absence due to injury. Across his entire Premier League career, of his 54 starting appearances that have resulted in no goals for the Norwegian, over half of them (29) have come after the new year.

Even going back to his Bundesliga days, his final season at Dortmund saw Haaland score 16 goals in the first 20 games of the season, even as he worked around an injury absence. From there, he finished with just six goals in the final four months of the campaign, including a hat-trick for half that total.

Why is Erling Haaland struggling to score goals?

There are a number of factors contributing to a player of Erling Haaland's exceptional skill finding it difficult to hit the back of the net. Here are a few of the biggest reasons why the Man City star has seen the goals dry up across the second half of the 2025/26 season.

Pep Guardiola forced to use narrower tactical setup

One of Pep Guardiola's favored tactical setups is to use wide wingers to stretch opposition back lines and open up space for Erling Haaland. In his best moments, Haaland can lurk at the back post hoping to latch onto a cross from the opposite flank, or he can battle with a defender to meet a vertical ball after play has been cut back from a wide area.

Unfortunately for Man City, that tactic has been difficult to make use of regularly over the last two years as the squad ages and can no longer use peak athleticism to cover for the defensive holes that approach creates. In particular, this season, Guardiola has been forced to deploy a more narrow attack which allows the team to cover potential counter-attacks more effectively but also crowds the middle of the pitch where Haaland operates.

In the beginning of the season, Guardiola had hoped to get back to his wide attacking approach, but it left City exceedingly open on the counter, especially late in games when they were struggling to hold onto leads. While Haaland was profiting from a return to his favoured tactical setup, the team overall was suffering as they were dragged into shootouts that saw them ultimately drop points.

Using players like Rayan Cherki, Phil Foden, and Omar Marmoush out wide through the second half of the season, Man City's attack provides much less width to stretch opposition defenders and instead sees those players cut inside while progressing the ball forward into the attacking third.

This way, there are far fewer players out wide to feed Haaland the ball, and those who do crop up in wide areas are often full-backs instead of wingers who are not as proficient at crossing. When attacking through the middle, the game is too clogged for Haaland to get in positions he prefers.

In a graph created by Alex Barker of The Athletic, it's clear that Haaland isn't getting nearly as good of shots as he is used to, or as he did in the first half of the season. The graph shows the vast majority of his shots in the first half of the season came in behind the opposition defence, while a significantly higher number of late have come with the defence in front of him.

Man City players with best relationship to Haaland playing less

For a myriad of reasons, Man City have seen the players who have been most prolific for Haaland's chance creation see less time on the field.

Jeremy Doku, who has linked up with Haaland incredibly well since joining Man City, has seen his playing time drop the second half of the season largely due to injury. Phil Foden, who has developed an exceptional relationship with Haaland through their Man City careers, has seen his time fall off a cliff this season. Bernardo Silva has begun to show signs of age and will be leaving at the end of the campaign, and Tijjani Reijnders has dropped off in the second half as well.

As Barker also points out, another player missing is Josko Gvardiol, who suffered a serious injury and has missed nearly the entire second half of the season. While a defender hardly has much influence in the chances Erling Haaland can feast on, it does contribute in some slight way. Gvardiol is a left-footed centre-back who can clip the ball into the box from a quality angle, while his replacement Marc Guehi is right-footed and doesn't quite have the same line of delivery.

Man City getting goals from other players

Haaland's goal drought has partially been due to the fact that other players have stepped up for Man City and taken over in the goal scoring department.

The 25-year-old's dry spell has come since December 27. In that span, Man City have scored 22 goals in 14 matches, only three of which have come from Haaland. Meanwhile, two inside-minded players in Antoine Semenyo and Nico O'Reilly have scored nine combined, which is not a coincidence.

Some of this can be attributed to the attention Haaland has been getting defensively, as teams try to make other City players beat them instead of the supremely talented striker.

Is Erling Haaland playing well?

This is a complicated question.

From one standpoint, Man City have climbed back into the Premier League title race, taking advantage of a few Arsenal slips to put themselves within six points plus a game in hand.

Throughout Haaland's goal drought, Man City have only lost one game, and while they have drawn six as well, they scored two or more goals in two of those.

On the other hand, it is Erling Haaland's job to score goals, and he very clearly has not been doing that. If you ask the Norwegian, he would say it's not been up to standards.

“I think it’s been a bit too much up and down, which is not good enough,” Haaland said to TNT Sports in a post-match interview in early April.