Striker Erling Haaland has once again disappeared this season, contributing to Man City’s stalemate before RB Leipzig and accepting a 1-1 draw in the first leg of the 1/8 Champions League round of 16.
As a guest of RB Leipzig, Man City lost “conductor” De Bruyne because of illness. Coach Pep Guardiola continued to experiment with a three-back formation, but this time he pushed Kyle Walker up high as a right midfielder, while Nathan Ake kicked a left-back and also served as a left-back instead of Bernardo Silva.
Pep Guardiola’s new arrangement makes no difference. In the first half, Man City was stuck in front of Leipzig’s deep defense. They only suddenly opened the scoring in the 27th minute thanks to Riyad Mahrez after Xaver Schlager’s mistake. From the ungainly broken pass of Xaver Schlager, Grealish and Gundogan coordinated beautifully to help Mahrez escape to face the home team’s keeper and easily score.
Score the first goal but Man City is not easier to kick. Erling Haaland almost disappeared on the field, making the visitors’ attacks easily broken.
Entering the second half, Man City was even forced back when RB Leipzig rushed to find an equalizer. The home team created a series of dangerous situations before Josko Gvardiol headed home to score the equalizer 1-1 after 70 minutes. In this ball, goalkeeper Ederson misjudged the drop, while Man’s central defenders. City helpless before the jump of the Croatian star.
Even though Man City was equalized and played deadlocked, coach Pep Guardiola still decided not to replace any players on the field. So, Man City ended the match disappointing. Opta’s statistics show that the English team showed two completely different faces in the two rounds.
In the first half, Man City held the ball 74% with a pass accuracy of 94.6% and gave Leipzig only 1 chance to finish. Entering the second half, they only had 49% of the ball with their passing accuracy reduced to 84.7% and faced 6 shots from Leipzig.
In the overall performance of Man City, Erling Haaland did not have a significant contribution. The Norwegian striker touched the ball 22 times, made 11 accurate passes and had only 1 shot (not on target) throughout the match. Haaland could not even penetrate Leipzig’s penalty area when he was accompanied by Gvardiol as shown with the ball.
Notably, this is the 5th match Haaland has lost in the last 6 matches of Man City. After an unbelievable start to the season, the Norwegian striker seems to have been caught by the opponents.
