Jamie Carragher has argued that Erling Haaland is Arsenal’s “biggest fear” in the title race, though one Manchester City stat suggests otherwise…
The odds are increasingly in Arsenal’s favour as they look to end their prolonged trophy drought by winning the Premier League season, with Mikel Arteta’s side capitalising on Liverpool’s crisis to move clear at the top of the table.
Liverpool’s glaring issues were exposed during their run of four straight Premier League defeats, so it is currently hard to see the current holders being Arsenal‘s toughest title challengers as expected.
Instead, neutrals may have to rely on Man City to push Arsenal during the run-in, though they did slip to six points adrift of the table-toppers by losing to Aston Villa at the weekend.
This season’s Man City squad is certainly a far cry from the side that won the Premier League for four consecutive seasons, with their pre-New Year slump in 2024 making it clear that a seismic squad overhaul was required.
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This process started in this year’s winter transfer window and continued in the summer, with around £360m spent on reducing the average age of their squad and building for the future.
It is too soon to judge whether this rebuild has been successful, as they are still at the beginning of a long process, but it is clear that they do not currently have more than a couple of elite players.
One such elite player is Haaland, with the 25-year-old taking his game to an obscene new level this season by scoring 15 goals in 12 games and eleven in nine Premier League matches.
Haaland’s incredible goal-scoring is nothing new, but he is now offering much more to Man City as he’s become a huge asset from set pieces in the defensive half and has also improved his hold-up play.
This means Haaland, not Guardiola, is the most important person at one-man team Man City and Carragher has argued that he could carry his side to the title this season.
“Arsenal came into this season worried about Liverpool being the major obstacle to ending a 21-year title wait. Now their biggest fear might be Erling Haaland,” Carragher claimed.
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“Where Arsenal have the best squad among the contenders and Liverpool must fix well-documented issues, Manchester City have the most influential player and dynamic attacker.
“The Norwegian is the biggest reason why Pep Guardiola’s side have a great chance of reclaiming their crown. Without him, City’s most realistic target would be finishing in the top four.”
Haaland is a special talent, but he can only do so much and at some stage, he will need some assistance from his Man City teammates.
Currently, Man City’s other attacking players are not pulling their weight, with Phil Foden, Rayan Cherki, Tijjani Reijnders and Matheus Nunes level as their joint-third top scorers in the Premier League with one goal apiece.
Embarrassingly, Man City’s second-top scorer in the league is Burnley centre-back Maxime Esteve after he netted two own goals in last month’s 5-1 win at the Etihad.
Put simply, this is not good enough if Man City want to be anything more than a challenger for Champions League qualification this season, as their overreliance on Haaland cannot lead to a serious challenge to Arsenal.
