You don’t have to be Erling Haaland to score a tap-in for Manchester City, but it helps.
Ruben Dias rounded off the scoring from almost underneath the crossbar at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan thanks to one of those moves Pep Guardiola’s men can pull off with their eyes closed these days.
Riyad Mahrez, or anybody, comes inside from the right, Joao Cancelo, or somebody else, runs around the outside, Mahrez slips them in, clear of any defenders, and they produce a low cross that you — whoever you are — would struggle to miss from. As Dias showed against Sevilla last night.
Advertisement
So it’s no surprise summer signing Haaland has had so many goals like that already.
After all, it is the perfect match of a goal-creating machine — City — and a goal-scoring machine — Haaland.
HE IS INEVITABLE! 🤯
Erling Haaland finds the back of the net for Man City once again ✅#UCL pic.twitter.com/j797bedlDf
— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) September 6, 2022
“Inevitable” was the word on a lot of lips on Tuesday as he scored the first as tournament favourites City began their 2022-23 Champions League campaign with a 4-0 win in Spain, and then the third.
“They have an amazing sense,” Guardiola said of Haaland and fellow newcomer Julian Alvarez after they shared five of City’s goals between them against Nottingham Forest 10 days ago. “It’s natural. It’s difficult to teach this sense of goals.”
Gary Lineker, the former England striker who now hosts UK highlights show Match Of The Day, countered later that evening that those instincts can be taught. He even said he could do so himself, by telling strikers which areas to get into and that if they get into them enough times, they would score goals. “It’s a numbers game,” added Lineker, whose own career numbers include 48 goals for England, six of which won him the Golden Boot as top scorer at the 1986 World Cup.
And if you get into those key areas often enough, while playing for a team who get the ball into those areas all the time, it’s going to lead to a lot of easy-looking, but extremely detailed, goals.
The basic principle is to get players in behind the defence and in motion, so they are clear of defenders and able to make a fairly easy low pass or cross across the box.
A few seasons ago, the trademark Manchester City goal generally came from their left. For example, Oleksandr Zinchenko would be wide on that flank and pass inside, slightly backwards, to David Silva in the half-space.
Advertisement
As soon as this happened, the opposition defence would step up a yard or two, but Leroy Sane would make a third-man run in behind. This would free him to play in a low cross and Sergio Aguero and/or Raheem Sterling would arrive at the back post for the tap-in.
“I love players to arrive in the boxes, not be in the boxes,” Guardiola says.
Don’t stand still and wait, attack the spaces, and know when to. It’s drilled into them.
City have several different ways to get players into this position but their trademark goal might now have changed completely, from a move down the left over to one on the right, with different players involved.
Generally, City do still build up their attacks on the left, but with the aim of switching play quickly to the right. One of Jack Grealish’s more subtle traits, which Guardiola has praised, is that he attracts players so that Cancelo and Rodri are free, and from there they can move the ball to the right.
And when it gets to that side, either from a quick switch or a little more slowly, there is a plan.
It could be Mahrez driving at the left-back one-against-one, to cut inside and shoot, perhaps.
But another option, one they have had for years, is to have somebody, let’s say Phil Foden, pull out wide and, as the defence shifts across, send Kevin De Bruyne bursting through the half-space into the box.
GO DEEPER
Michael Cox's tactical guide to this season's leading Champions League contenders
The pass played at an angle in behind the defence could be played by Foden or Bernardo Silva or Mahrez — all left-footed. That is by design. The ball will be moving in the direction in which De Bruyne (or Bernardo, or Mahrez) is running, meaning he does not have to adapt his movements at all, as long as the pass is good. And De Bruyne will be moving quicker, possibly in the opposite direction, to the opposition defenders, so he is clear.
Advertisement
If Mahrez or Bernardo receive the pass it’s not as ideal, because they are left-footed, but when it’s the predominantly right-footed De Bruyne, it’s almost too easy.
And when Haaland is in the middle, even more so.
“There’s a shot from outside the box, he’s there. There’s a cross into the box, he’s there,” Guardiola has said of the 22-year-old Norway international. “He has the instinct to score goals, to be in the right place. It’s a great virtue.”
It is something that City have missed in recent years, for all their success. They have played brilliantly with a false nine — some could argue better, until a team with Haaland in it surpasses that standard — but they did not have these kinds of movements.
“In that moment maybe he feels we don’t play with a proper, proper striker,” Guardiola said earlier this season about Foden shooting rather than passing across the box. “But now we know, in that situation, Erling is always there.”
And that instinct isn’t magic. There’s method to it.
For that first goal against Sevilla, with the Foden-De Bruyne link-up on the right, Haaland is outside the box when Foden plays the new trademark pass. He’s behind Bernardo (centre of screen grab below — he’s the slightly taller one in blue).
Bernardo then offers for the short ball, which attracts defenders to him.
Haaland, meanwhile, is taking off towards goal. He knows where he needs to be and De Bruyne knows where the ball needs to go.
It is why Haaland scores so many goals on the stretch, with one touch, because he is attacking — arriving to — exactly the right spaces. And the move that comes before it has been perfectly designed.
His second goal of the night is an even better display of outstanding movement.
Initially, Haaland makes a move towards the near post, but as Foden shoots, he drops around the back — into the defender’s blind spot.
The defender can only be obsessed with the ball in front of him, the immediate danger, but in that time Haaland disappears into oceans of space, ready and waiting for either a rebound or another pass.
“There’s a shot from outside the box, he’s there,” as Guardiola says.
Advertisement
So when the shot was saved and parried out, Haaland was ready to poke it in.
Not all of his goals will be perfectly designed.
One of his one-touch finishes in that wild game away at Newcastle a couple of weeks ago came from a high ball to the back post and Rodri and Dias getting up to challenge and knock the cross down. From there, Haaland pounced, wrapped his foot around the ball and scored.
“His finish for the goal he made look easy, but that wasn’t easy,” Newcastle head coach Eddie Howe said. “That was the finish of someone who’s got all the instincts he needs to score goals in this league.”
It’s 12 Haaland goals in seven games for City now — ten of them with his first touch. Is it any wonder?
(Photo: David Ramos/Getty Images)
ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57km5uampoaHxzfJFrZmlxX2WEcLnAp5qhnaOpsrN5wqKrsmWVp7mqusZmn5qZnJa7pXnOp5xmrJ%2BqsKl7