Back during the 2021/22 season, Manchester City did something almost unthinkable in English football. They won the Premier League title without a dependable centre-forward. Gabriel Jesus was the player most closely resembling one, but as fitness and form limited him to just eight goals in 28 outings, only 14 of which came up front, Pep Guardiola instead utilised the likes of Phil Foden and Kevin de Bruyne to operate as False 9s.
Counter-intuitively, it didn't stop City scoring goals; they hit 150 in all competitions. That year, their closest competitors for the Premier League title were Liverpool, who had evolved a front-line around using Roberto Firmino, an exceptional all-round attacking player but by no means a natural goalscorer, as a deep-lying focal point of their attack. Out-and-out strikers were out of style as managers favoured more generalist central attackers over specialised goalscorers.
Then, Manchester City signed Erling Haaland for a bargain £51.2m, and perceptions quickly changed. Haaland has become the fastest player to reach 100 Premier League goals since arriving in English football in summer 2022, and has almost certainly hit that milestone with the fewest touches, too. The Norwegian's contributions to all-round play range from minimal to non-existent - in 2025, he ranked in the bottom 1 percentile for touches per 90 minutes across Europe's top leagues - and yet this season he has scored 44% of City's Premier League goals, the biggest percentage contribution and the highest individual scoring total, of any player in the division.
Every Club Wanted their Own Erling Haaland
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Haaland's scoring prowess seems to have convinced many of Manchester City's rivals that more typical, old-fashioned, goalscoring centre-forwards are suddenly worth investing in again. Last summer, four of the Premier League's five most expensive signings were all physical, lanky strikers expected to score goals: Alexander Isak, Hugo Ekitike, Benjamin Sesko and Nick Woltemade. Meanwhile, Arsenal spent big on Viktor Gyokeres after netting 97 times across two seasons at Sporting Lisbon, Chelsea signed both Joao Pedro and Liam Delap, and the Magpies also coughed up £50m for injury-striken Yoanne Wissa.
And yet, for the total £505m spent on those eight centre-forwards, they have returned just 23 Premier League goals - an average of less than four each, with half of the season now gone. Haaland, meanwhile, has scored 19 on his own. The drastic difference between those two numbers highlights the crux of the issue: everybody wanted to find their own Haaland, but the City striker's immacculate form is not a symptom of tactical swings that have made traditional No.9s more successful again. He is quite simply a generational goalscorer, impossible to replicate or find your own version of. He's an outlier, not an archetype.
Limited Value for Money Despite Tactical Shifts
Manchester United's Benjamin Sesko during the warm up before the Man City loss
There are other signs pointing to why traditional No.9s are tactically valuable once again. The widespread adoption of long throws and a greater emphasis on scoring from set pieces, to the extent that many teams now have designated and physically recognisable set piece coaches, are the two most prevalent tactical innovations this season. As a consequence, 18% of top-flight goals this season have been headers, the highest rate for any of the last five campaigns.
Combining those tactical swings with many managers prioritising quality in possession over more traditional physical and defensive qualities in their centre-halves, and it's understandable why so many top clubs have seen an opportunity in signing powerful and imposing strikers with promising goal records.
It's often argued that football tactics are as cyclical as they are ever-evolving, and having won the Premier League six times in seven seasons by creating a City team in which almost every position was filled by someone with the qualities to do at least a half-decent job in central midfield, Pep Guardiola was perhaps the first top-level Premier League manager to begin moving back towards more specialised players in specific roles. With defenders becoming less physical and less defensive, it makes sense to revert to centre-forwards who can exploit those weaknesses.
But they still aren't proving to be particularly cost-effective. And in fact, as well as Haaland, the aforementioned cabal of strikers have all found their scoring returns either matched or bettered by Danny Welbeck and Dominic Calvert-Lewin, two veteran front-men who were signed on free transfers, and Brentford's Igor Thiago, an expensive outlay for the Bees at £30m, but a relatively modest acquisition within the wider context of the Premier League.
And that's where football is at with centre-forwards right now. Haaland's incredible form has created a sudden lust for powerful strikers who specialise in goalscoring, the kind Premier League football was littered with during the 1990s. But the premium mark-up created by the 'next Haaland' fantasy has negatively impacted their value for money. The Premier League's eight most expensive striker signings have cost £14m per goal involvement this season; the eight most expensive attacking midfielder signings have cost £1.2m more per goal involvement, but generally make much more consisent contributions to all-round play.
Goalscoring strikers, of course, have value in the modern game. Goals decide games, after all. But in modern football they are best utilised as part of a wider squad that has different options in attack, not a be-all-and-end-all. The money spent this summer suggests some clubs have overestimated their worth, and that stems back to Haaland's impact on the Premier League.