Manchester City striker Erling Haaland
Manchester City striker Erling Haaland
Phil Foden, Ilkay Gundogan, Jeremy Doku and now Bernardo Silva. Manchester the opening 10 minutes in each of their four Club World Cup games and none of them have been scored by .
City's No.9 would rather have the lion's share, yet part of his struggles last season came from the fact none of his teammates could be relied upon to score. Looking down from his 31 goals, with 10 was the only other Blue to reach double figures.
It wasn't just a goal problem either, it was a performance problem. Opposition teams learned that Haaland was the only goal threat and so adapted accordingly, marking him out of the game confident in the knowledge that this would mean they kept a clean sheet; too often, they were right.
To watch City in the Club World Cup has been to draw a line in the sand on last season and start to celebrate a new era. More than £275million of signings have been made in 2025 and those players are already doing the job of providing more competition for places.
It can only be a good thing to see City attack so slickly against Al Hilal in the last-16 then, given how often they battled so unsuccessfully against defensive teams last season. Multiple players crashing into the box helped to take the burden from Haaland and surprise opponents who had grown used to an overreliance on the Norwegian.
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Even when he did score, it again pointed to an alternative source of goals. Haaland prodded in a corner as Nathan Ake lurked as the new set-piece coach saw his stock rise again.
If that was a big positive, the fact that Haaland's goal was on an equaliser to make it 2-2 will have concerned City staff. Having looked in control for so long in this competition, they were undone by the simple brilliance of former City defender Joao Cancelo.
Cancelo's ball across the box leading up to the first was dangerous, while his pass for the second goal was exquisite. From City's perspective it was all too simple as they were sliced open with ease.
They saved the worst for extra time, with Kalidou Koulibaly able to head home directly from a corner to put Al Hilal back in front. Scoring goals hasn't been an issue this tournament, but their defending bore all the hallmarks of the play that cost them so dearly last season.
After being dumped out of the competition in the biggest upset so far, they have plenty of time to think about that and make sure any positives from this tournament aren't outweighed by nagging issues.
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