What is the point of Erling Haaland if he's not scoring?

‘Stay humble, eh.’ Those were Erling Haaland’s words to Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta at full-time after Manchester City had just scrambled a stoppage-time equaliser at the Etihad Stadium in September.

Haaland, earlier in the game, popped in his 10th Premier League goal in five games so was, unsurprisingly, feeling pretty good about himself.

But, as my mum always used to say, pride comes before a fall and so it was after those words to Arteta that Haaland embarked on his worst league run of goalscoring in a City shirt, three goals in his last 10 games, a barren spell that has also coincided with City’s worst losing streak under Pep Guardiola.

Seven defeats in their last 10 in all competitions for Manchester City. That’s not just bad for a manager like Guardiola, that’s bad for any big-club manager. The last time Arsenal lost seven in 10 was in 1987 under George Graham. The last time Liverpool did it was in 1998 under Gerard Houllier. Even Tottenham haven’t done it since 2004.

Now, of course, these things are linked. Haaland is Guardiola’s leading man, his main source of goals and, in so many ways, his talisman.

Take the Premier League: when Haaland scores, Man City usually win, and they hardly ever lost. They have only ever lost once when he’s scored and that was against Brighton in November.

When Haaland starts but doesn’t score, though, City fail to win more than half the time and lose nearly a third of it.

This raises two questions. The first is why has he suddenly stopped scoring and, secondly, if he’s not scoring is he actually doing anything to help the team?

Without his goals what is the point of Erling Haaland?

To answer the first, it’s no coincidence that this drought coincided with injuries to two of City’s most influential stars in Rodri and Kevin De Bruyne.

Rodri suffered his season-ending injury in the game against Arsenal while De Bruyne was ruled out ahead of the match and only made his first league start since against Nottingham Forest earlier this month.

Without them at the heart of City’s play, Haaland has found himself starved of chances.

In this 10-game barren run, he’s receiving fewer ‘big chances’, an opportunity which statisticians say he’d be expected to score, than ever before and a lower Expected Goal (xG) tally per goal. In everyday language, Haaland’s team-mates aren’t creating the clear-cut opportunities for him they did before

Over the first five games of the season, De Bruyne played the most passes into the box for City with 60, averaging 15 per 90 minutes. Across the last 10 games, it’s Phil Foden who’s played the most but only 49 times at 7.8 per game, nearly half as regularly.

Since Haaland’s time at City no midfielder has played more passes into the final third than Rodri.

Guardiola’s side move the ball slower and with less intent without them and it allows opposition defences the time to double up on Haaland and starve him of service in dangerous areas.

Take these two examples against Fulham and Nottingham Forest. City won both games but Haaland, so often crowded out, barely had a sniff.

This leads us to the second question: if he’s not scoring, what’s he contributing. Well, in the absence of Rodri and De Bruyne during this run, Haaland has dropped much deeper.

He’s actually touched the ball more often in this poor run and received more passes…just fewer in the attacking third and even less in the box, where it matters.

You can see from his pitch maps just how deep he’s dropping. Haaland is picking up the ball and playing passes in that dangerous central area, 30 yards out, where the likes of De Bruyne and Foden often thrive.

He’s been more creative, too. He’s also rolled his sleeves up and done some dirty work.

Over the first five games, when the goals were flying in, he created just a single chance for his team-mates and recovered possession twice. In the last 10 games, when they haven’t, he’s created 10 chances and won the ball back 10 times as well.

So, yes, he is contributing just not in the ways best suited to him or to Guardiola.

The main issue, however, is that while he’s getting fewer chances he’s not taking them when they do come his way.

Across the first give games, he had 10 big chances and scored seven of them. Ten goals from 26 shots at a conversion rate of 38.5%. That’s insanely good, verging on the unsustainable.

Over the last 10 matches, however, he’s converted three of his 13 big chances. Three goals from 43 shots at a conversion rate of seven per cent. That’s desperately bad, also verging on the unsustainable for a player of Haaland’s quality.

That’s lower than all-but three of the 25 other players to attempt at least 20 shots in that time.

There are many reasons for City’s slump. Among them are that Guardiola is missing Rodri, he’s missed De Bruyne and Haaland is missing chances. No wonder they’re struggling.

The glimmer of hope for Guardiola is that Haaland won’t keep missing them. He’s far too good to do that.

When he finds his range again, things will start to look brighter.