FA Cup as a consolation?
© Imago
Erling Haaland (24) and Manchester City have experienced the weakest season since Pep Guardiola has been a trainer (since 2016/17). With the final of the FA Cup, there is still a chance of a title in the current season. Against Crystal Palace with coach Oliver Glasner, the Skyblues want to concentrate a comparatively messed up season on Saturday. Haaland still speaks of a “gruesome” playing time of the dethroned master. The striker himself, measured by his previous career, also has a follower.
Haaland continued to record compared to the “BBC”: “The season was hard. It is not nice to lose so many games. That’s why we have to end it reasonably and win a title.”
Although Haaland refers to the relatively meager yield of the entire team, the most valuable team in the world, the season also has a personal low value for the Norwegian. 30 Saisontore – UA 21 in the Premier League, 8 in the premier class – would be a gift from the sky for most other strikers in football, but for Haaland it is a low in its enormously successful career, at least in terms of operational time.
30 goals in its 3,528 minutes of the season have made about 117 minutes required in the previous season. When Haaland took more than 100 minutes per hit last time, he was still at Moldde FK at his first professional club in Norway. At that time he shot a goal every 125 minutes. Although the number became a little weaker in the 2018/19 season to Haaland’s move to RB Salzburg, it was hardly noteworthy at the time.
If only one goal in 150 minutes scored in the first season in Austria, the 2019/20 season was only 52 minutes per hit. At BVB between 2020 and 2022 Haaland, about every 80 minutes, as well as at MAN City 2022/23. From 2023/24, the top English club only scored a goal every 99 minutes, 2024/25 only every 117 minutes. Actually, these are consistently strong values, but so far it has not been Haaland’s collar width. Haaland has the chance to improve its frequency back on the previous level against Palace on Saturday and in the league on the last two match days against Bournemouth and Fulham. In the top scorer list of the Premier League, he has seven goals behind Liverpools Mohamed Salah.
In the Premier League, the qualification for the Champions League is still not sure in the coming season. “If you won four championship titles in a row and then don’t get the fifth, it is not a successful season,” Haaland concreted his brooding about the disappointing year of the former series master. The team is currently in fourth place in the table. Fifth place is still enough for the premier class this time. Aston Villa lurks on six with only three points less but much worse goal balance than City. With 65 points of the Skyblues, it is already clear that it will be the club’s punitive season since coach Pep Guardiola in 2016.