Is Erling Haaland playing well? Assessing Man City striker's form as goals dry up amidst Premier League drought originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.Under Pep Guardiola, Manchester City have grown to become one of the most formidable attacking teams not just across England but indeed in all of Europe.One of the defining players of City's Guardiola era is Erling Haaland, the 25-year-old Norwegian freak of nature who has set the Premier League on fire since joining from Borussia Dortmund in the summer of 2022.Haaland's goal scoring prowess is unparalleled in Premier League history, having shattered the league's single-season goals record and threatening to rewrite the record book in a number of other categories.

That is what makes his goal drought so glaring as Haaland struggles to find the back of the net across the latter half of the current campaign.The Sporting News breaks down Haaland's second-half struggles and looks at the reasons why Guardiola's talisman has been unable to consistently beat goalkeepers of late.MORE:A full look at the latest team news and injury updates for Man City ahead of their next matchErling Haaland goal struggles in 2025/26 seasonErling Haaland raced to the front of the Premier League goal scoring chart at the start of the 2025/26 season, bagging 19 goals in Man City's first 17 games of the campaign.Since back-to-back braces against Crystal Palace and West Ham in mid-December, Haaland has fallen off a cliff. Starting with the December 27th match against Nottingham Forest, Haaland has scored just three Premier League goals over 13 matches, two of which were from the penalty spot.This is a similar pattern to previous seasons for Haaland at both Man City and previously at Borussia Dortmund, where he enjoys a furious start to the campaign before struggling to finish the season strong.Last season (2024/25), Haaland scored 10 goals in the first five matches of the season, almost half of his entire season-long tally, and had 19 by February 2, before a dry end to the campaign.

In the 2023/24 season, Haaland scored 14 goals in the first 13 games of the season, before a four-month spell that included four goals in 11 games plus a five-match absence due to injury. Across his entire Premier League career, of his 54 starting appearances that have resulted in no goals for the Norwegian, over half of them (29) have come after the new year.Even going back to his Bundesliga days, his final season at Dortmund saw Haaland score 16 goals in the first 20 games of the season, even as he worked around an injury absence. From there, he finished with just six goals in the final four months of the campaign, including a hat-trick for half that total.Why is Erling Haaland struggling to score goals?There are a number of factors contributing to a player of Erling Haaland's exceptional skill finding it difficult to hit the back of the net.

Here are a few of the biggest reasons why the Man City star has seen the goals dry up across the second half of the 2025/26 season.Pep Guardiola forced to use narrower tactical setupOne of Pep Guardiola's favored tactical setups is to use wide wingers to stretch opposition back lines and open up space for Erling Haaland. In his best moments, Haaland can lurk at the back post hoping to latch onto a cross from the opposite flank, or he can battle with a defender to meet a vertical ball after play has been cut back from a wide area.Unfortunately for Man City, that tactic has been difficult to make use of regularly over the last two years as the squad ages and can no longer use peak athleticism to cover for the defensive holes that approach creates.

In particular, this season, Guardiola has been forced to deploy a more narrow attack which allows the team to cover potential counter-attacks more effectively but also crowds the middle of the pitch where Haaland operates.In the beginning of the season, Guardiola had hoped to get back to his wide attacking approach, but it left City exceedingly open on the counter, especially late in games when they were struggling to hold onto leads. While Haaland was profiting from a return to his favoured tactical setup, the team overall was suffering as they were dragged into shootouts that saw them ultimately drop points.Using players like Rayan Cherki, Phil Foden, and Omar Marmoush out wide through the second half of the season, Man City's attack provides much less width to stretch opposition defenders and instead sees those players cut inside while progressing the ball forward into the attacking third.This way, there are far fewer players out wide to feed Haaland the ball, and those who do crop up in wide areas are often full-backs instead of wingers who are not as proficient at crossing. When attacking through the middle, the game is too clogged for Haaland to get in positions he prefers.In a graph created by Alex Barker of The Athletic, it's clear that Haaland isn't getting n