Josep Guardiola has experimented with a variety of tactical adjustments this season in a bid to unleash Manchester City’s creative side. Sometimes it’s necessary, but mostly by design. Not everything went well, but it gave us something to talk about.
They have deployed two attacking midfielders in Matheus Nunez and Nico O’Reilly at full-back, the wingers have been de facto central midfielders, they have had as many No. 10s on the pitch as possible, and most recently, Erling Haaland has been joined by either Antoine Semenho or Omar Marmouche in a two-top situation.
Much of this has been in response to a clear change in the style and structure of Premier League teams and a widespread move towards man-to-man marking. The need to force teams out by playing more directly and quickly in transition has seen major tactical changes, including an over-obsession with creating set pieces over the effectiveness of open play.
Guardiola doesn’t necessarily fully support that idea, with City scoring the lowest percentage of their 60 goals in the Premier League from set-pieces at 16.6 per cent, but when asked to talk about it he subtly admitted: “We’re moving in that direction.”
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Fundamentally, these changes changed the DNA of the entire league and the profile of the players recruited to play in the league. Consider the approach of City’s Abdukkodir Kusanov, now one of the fastest and most attacking centre-backs in the division, as an indicator of the need to excel in individual battles with direct pace.
Guardiola admits there are clear advantages to having a team that can play a vertical style of football when necessary. The route to the goal is now much less navigated by patient control, but rather determined by the speed at which threats are generated, especially at moments of transition. The ability to remove a middle man has really benefited Haaland at some point this season.
So why has his scoring numbers fallen off a cliff since the start of the year, from 25 goals from August to December to just five in 2026? At the same point in 2025, Haaland had already scored 11 goals. Is he the problem?
Guardiola recently admitted that he has yet to find the perfect formula with this newly evolved City group, which is far less complete than his old team under David Silva and Kevin De Bruyne. What is clear is that City have failed on too many occasions to balance Guardiola’s demands for stability and consistency with a suitable top-end threat. That’s why Rayan Cherki is in the team one week and out the next.
Cherki’s talent is useful when in possession, but when City lose the ball Guardiola prefers to let his players try to recover. He also likes players who are solid in duels and second phase ball wins. Neither aspect is Cherki’s strength, but there is no doubt that Haaland offers the better service on the pitch.
Rayan Cherki is second only to Bruno Fernandes in terms of creating big chances in the Premier League this season.
Interestingly, Guardiola’s most enthusiastic performance in recent weeks, the 3-1 FA Cup win at Newcastle, was the only game Haaland missed due to injury.
A few weeks earlier, in the 2-1 Premier League win over Newcastle, Man City’s manager was full of praise for Haaland, not because the No.9 scored either goal, but because he was huge defensively. Not exactly his main role.
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Man City manager Josep Guardiola praised Erling Haaland’s contribution to his team as he helped City to a crucial 2-1 win over Newcastle.
And here we reach a kind of crossroads.
If City prove to be a more balanced team without the off-color Haaland, will Pep face Arsenal at Wembley on Sunday? It seems insane to think that the best striker in the league (by some margin, measured by goal contribution) would not start in the final if he was fit. Despite March being a historically frugal month, a fifth of City’s total goals this season have been scored or assisted by him.
Erling Haaland has scored his lowest number of goals in the Premier League in March.
The biggest problem with City’s current attack has to be Haaland’s lack of performance. “We lacked goals and of course we miss him,” Guardiola said after dropping a point against West Ham last weekend. “I always believe it’s a connection and a lot of things create good interactions. But Erling, we need his goals.”
Fatigue, frustration and the quality and form of opponents in recent matches are definitely a factor. So is the quality of chances Haaland is giving. Since Matchday 22, just 33 per cent of his 15 shots inside the box have been considered ‘big chances’.
Haaland is kept away from the penalty box area where he is most effective.
During this period, the correlation between his minutes played and big chances more than doubled, from 50 minutes to 118 minutes. As a result, their conversion rate dropped to just 10.5 percent, and they also ended up opting to shoot far more from outside the box than they did at the beginning of the season, due to their lower xG value and lower scoring chances.
When Haaland scored against Real Madrid three days later, Guardiola declared at the London Stadium: “He will be back”, but only one of his five shots on target hit the net.
This is rocky and difficult territory for Guardiola. With the most powerful striker in the league on the bench, he will face huge criticism if City fail to score on Sunday. It’s even worse if you can’t create it completely. That’s a possibility against one of the league’s most compact defenses.
Could the Spaniard choose to solidify City’s eleven with direct dribblers like Cherki, Tijani Lijnders and Jeremy Doku, with Haaland as the central player? Or would City be better off playing with the pace of Semenho and Marmouche in a 4-2-2-2 system to draw Arsenal out?
Oddly enough, City’s Premier League win rate actually jumps from 55 per cent to 75 per cent when Haaland doesn’t play (dating back to the start of last season), despite the sample size of games without Haaland being much smaller.
Couple this with Haaland’s unusual record of eight appearances and zero goals in City’s cup finals, and perhaps the argument against him becomes somewhat stronger. His nerves always get weak in important matches like this.
But the dynamism of City’s attack against Real should at least encourage those making the 200-mile journey to the capital this weekend. City once again lacked decisiveness, and Haaland was more to blame than anyone else, but even with fewer players they scattered Thibaut Courtois’ goal.
Cherki had an insatiable passion and demonstrated a desire for not only skill but strength and determination. He has all the passes in the book.
This is a far cry from City’s side, but it is clear that they are not completely lacking. Above all, Guardiola needs to find the right balance in his structure to ensure that Haaland can score in the central zone, where he would benefit most if appointed.
After that, it will be up to the big Norwegian to reverse his recent form and produce a result.
Watch the Carabao Cup final between Arsenal and Manchester City live on Sky Sports Football on Sunday. Kickoff 4:30pm.
