LONDON — Manchester City’s Premier League title challenge has run out of steam just as Erling Haaland has run out of goals.
If City ever needed their prolific talisman to rise to the occasion, it was against West Ham United on Saturday evening after league leaders Arsenal had moved 10 points clear at the top of the table with a 2-0 home win over Everton.
But against his favourite opponent — Haaland has scored more goals (11) against West Ham than any other side — the 25-year-old produced one of his worst and most frustrating performances of the season in a 1-1 draw which inflicted serious damage on City’s title hopes after Konstantinos Mavropanos cancelled out Bernardo Silva’s opener. And yes, Haaland failed to score again.
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“Erling knows we need his goals,” City manager Pep Guardiola said. “We need to create more chances for him too, but he had three or four good chances early in the first half and didn’t score.
“But it’s not just about him. It’s about all the players, the vibes they feel. But he will be back. Erling will be back and maybe soon too.”
Haaland still leads the race for the Premier League Golden Boot this season with 22 goals — four more than Brentford’s Igor Thiago — but he has now gone a month without a goal in all competitions.
But his month-long drought is not a mere blip. If you zoom out to assess the bigger picture, the Norway international has now managed just three goals in his last 12 league games and two of those were penalties.
In what is undoubtedly a huge year for Haaland with Norway having qualified for the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup, the former Borussia Dortmund striker is enduring the worst form slump of his career and it looks to have cost City their hopes of winning the title.
And with City trailing 3-0 from the first leg of their UEFA Champions League round-of-16 tie against Real Madrid — the second leg is at the Etihad this Tuesday — Haaland’s no-show in the Bernabeu last Wednesday was another occasion when he fell well short of his expected levels.
As City toiled away at the London Stadium, eventually dropping two points against a relegation-threatened side for the second successive game after the 2-2 home draw against Nottingham Forest, Haaland registered just 21 touches in the whole game.
He had four efforts on goal, but only one of them forced Hammers goalkeeper Mads Hermansen into a save. The rest resulted in poor attempts, none worse than when he scuffed wide from 12 yards after being teed up perfectly by Jérémy Doku.
With two minutes to go at the end of the game, Haaland’s misfortune was borne out when he misjudged a cross and ended up with the pain of a ball in his groin area. Usually, Haaland would have eyed it up, moved accordingly and sent the ball into the back of net, but it was one of those nights when nothing went right.
Those nights are becoming more frequent for Haaland, though. He plays as though he is either fatigued or carrying an injury and, considering he has played since the start of the FIFA Club World Cup last June, both are possible explanations.
It is also fair to suggest that Haaland is missing the service of Kevin De Bruyne, who left City for Napoli last summer. Phil Foden’s perplexing absence from Guardiola’s starting XI means that another reliable old supply line has been cut off. City still have creativity in their squad, and it was noticeable that they looked much more dangerous when Rayan Cherki was introduced on 60 minutes. But even with Cherki on the pitch, Haaland only had one clear chance and he missed it.
All great strikers go through barren spells, but this is the first prolonged slump of Haaland’s career and it has come at a time when City, and the 25-year-old, usually move up a gear in the second half of the season. But rather than Haaland scoring the goals to edge a team closer to the title, it is Arsenal’s much-maligned Viktor Gyökeres who is stepping up and making the difference for his team.
Gyokeres has scored six goals in his last 12 games for the Gunners and his goal in the 2-0 win against Everton — an 89th minute opener — was crucial and could turn out to be the moment that clinched the title for Arsenal.
Haaland has been that guy for City so consistently over the years that when he isn’t, there is an obvious drop off.
After Haaland, Foden is City’s second highest scorer in the league with seven goals, so when the big man isn’t scoring, City find it more difficult to win.
And this season, it will cost them the title.
