Champions League impact, not domestic dominance, is why Man City opted for Haaland

Pep Guardiola doesn't like to predict the future.

Before a ball was kicked this season, the Manchester City manager refused to cement his team and Liverpool as favorites to challenge for the Premier League title again.

Based on Liverpool's disappointing start to the campaign, Guardiola may have been right to abstain, and the City boss stuck to the same tactic on Tuesday when asked if Erling Haaland - who scored 12 goals in eight games in all competitions this season - could be the difference when it comes to finally ending the Citizens' wait for Champions League glory.

"I'm not in a position to know that," Guardiola said bluntly ahead of City's meeting with Haaland's former club Borussia Dortmund on Wednesday. "The team is playing well, too. But at the moment I don't know."

Where his manager had remained on the fence, Ilkay Gundogan – another former Dortmund star – was a bit more open.

"We hope so," the City captain told reporters when asked the same question. "Obviously having a good number nine, a good striker, physically strong, determined is going to help us a lot, but we'll see.

“Winning the Champions League is an incredible thing to achieve, a very difficult competition; it's never easy and small details can decide the outcome. We will do everything we can to go as far as possible."

Haaland's start to life in the Premier League has been nothing short of outrageous. He scored 10 goals in six appearances, the fastest player in the history of the competition to reach that tally, alongside Micky Quinn in 1992.

The 22-year-old wasted no time in transferring his domestic form to the European stage too, scoring a brace in City's 4-0 win over Sevilla last week, and that's in the League champions, not in the Premier League, where City really need him to make a difference.

Only 36 players in Champions League history have scored more goals in the competition than Haaland, who has 25 in his 20 appearances in UEFA's flagship tournament.

He is the first City player to score on his Premier League and Champions League debut for the club and the fourth player in the competition's history to score in his first appearance for three different teams ( Salzburg, Dortmund and City), after Fernando Morientes, Javier Saviola and Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

Haaland's tally is the highest of any player in their first 20 Champions League games, and if he scores against Dortmund he will be the second player to score in the competition for and against the giants of the Bundesliga, after Ciro Immobile.< /p>

It was that sort of form that attracted City, who failed to sign Harry Kane in 2021.

With Sergio Aguero's availability becoming more limited as his time at City drew to a close, Guardiola found success without having to rely on a traditional striker.

While he was enthusiastic about Gabriel Jesus, who made a whirlwind debut at Arsenal, the Brazil international was often used extensively in the previous two campaigns, with Kevin De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva, Phil Foden, Raheem Sterling (now at Chelsea) and even Jack Grealish sometimes filling the role of a 'false nine' in Guardiola's fluid attack.

City won the league last season and the season before. Indeed, four of the last five English titles have been with Guardiola, and with or without Haaland, you would have been brave to bet against them retaining the trophy this season.

Yet they have repeatedly failed in Europe. After losing 1-0 to Chelsea – a team also using a false system of nines – in the 2020-21 final, City last season had a plethora of chances to put their semi-final with Real Madrid to bed , only to lose after a remarkable comeback from Los Blancos in the second leg.

In Haaland, they have a player who should right those wrongs.

With De Bruyne, Silva, Foden and Co. providing the opportunities, Haaland was still forced to score, but his finishing already exceeded expectations.

His 12 goals have come from shots with an aggregate expected goals value (xG) of 9.4. Essentially, he scored nearly three more goals than one would expect, given the quality of the chances presented to him.

Not that these opportunities were particularly difficult, of course.

Haaland's 12 goals all came from 'big chances' - defined by Opta as an opportunity a player should score from.

No other player in Europe's top five leagues has had as many 'big chances' as Haaland, who had 20, including the Community Shield game against Liverpool in July. Neymar, who is flying high at Paris Saint-Germain, is second with 14. More evidence, perhaps, that he is the final piece of the jigsaw in this incredibly creative City side. The player must see them beyond the line in the event of a push.

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