Doing it all
Doing it all
There's a statistical outlier in this year's Man City side — but it's not Erling Haaland
Welcome to the seventh edition of Plot the Ball for 2023.
Despite being more likely than not to finish second in the Premier League this season, Man City have been clearly the best team in the competition based on their underlying numbers. Norwegian striker Erling Haaland is one of the reasons why they’ve been so effective — but you can make the argument that he’s not yet City’s most exceptional, or influential, attacking player.
There's a statistical outlier in this year's Man City side — but it's not Erling Haaland
In rough terms, you can break down the job of a football team in possession of the ball into two distinct phases: progressing the ball upfield into advanced areas, then turning that advanced possession into goal-scoring opportunities in the form of shots.
Different teams assign these tasks to players in different positions and roles on the field, but all of them ultimately have to do the same things in order to be effective.
Man City striker Erling Haaland was put on this earth to enable his team to do the second of these two things — and he’s having a remarkable first Premier League season inside the box.
His integration into City’s overall attacking system, however, is far from complete.
As evidence of his contribution to City’s creation of goal-scoring opportunities, consider that — in only his age-22 season — only three other forwards1 across Europe’s ‘Big Five’ men’s leagues have generated more combined expected goals and expected assisted goals2 per 90 minutes played this year3.
To assess his tactical integration, we can look specifically at the degree to which he has been involved in City’s progression of the ball up the field.
For each player in the ‘Big Five’ leagues, FBref measures the number of progressive carries4 and progressive passes5 they make — as well as the number of progressive passes they are the recipient of.
Among forwards, it tends to be elite wide players — think Kylian Mbappé, Vinícius Júnior or Bukayo Saka — who serve as primary outlets for ball progression, and who rack up big carrying and reception numbers as a consequence.
Unsurprisingly, given his central role, Haaland’s progression numbers fall far short of these players.
More interesting is the fact that he falls short of other elite central forwards. Even players like Robert Lewandowski and Victor Osimhen — whose teams have markedly less of the ball than Haaland’s does6 — contribute more combined progressive carries, passes and receptions per 90 than he does.
Haaland is obviously exceptional at what he does — and will only get better with more time in City’s tactical system with his new teammates — but at this stage he is really nothing more than their finisher.
If we tend to expect forwards on top teams to contribute to both major phases of attack — as progressive carriers and targets for progressive passes, as well as shot-creators and -takers — the roles of those who play in midfield can be much more varied.
In general, however, they aren’t expected to fulfil major roles in their team’s ball progression and chance creation at the same time.
Unless, that is, they’re Kevin De Bruyne.
Man City’s tactical set-up in possession often sees a fullback tuck in behind De Bruyne to allow him to push further upfield than most midfielders — often into the right halfspace where he is so lethal.
And the impact of this is clear in the data: he is more effective in each phase of attack than any other midfielder in the ‘Big Five’ leagues, averaging more than 21 combined progressive carries, passes and receptions per 90 and almost 0.7 combined expected goals and expected assisted goals7.
Haaland will undoubtedly be the team’s future, but — even at the age of 31 — Kevin De Bruyne remains the engine that drives Man City’s attack.
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With at least 1,800 league minutes played — equivalent to 19 sets of 90 minutes, or half of a league season (in four out of the five leagues).
Expected goals exclude penalties; expected assisted goals equal the sum of, per FBref: “xG which follows a pass that assists a shot”.
He’s also scoring his own (non-penalty) shots at a rate significantly higher than average. This is something he’s done in every season of his career for which data is available, but never to this extent: in his three seasons at Dortmund, his non-penalty goals total was equal to 1.3x his non-penalty xG; this season at City, it’s at 1.4x.
“Carries that move the ball towards the opponent's goal line at least 10 yards from its furthest point in the last six passes, or any carry into the penalty area. Excludes carries which end in the defending 50% of the pitch.”
“Completed passes that move the ball towards the opponent's goal line at least 10 yards from its furthest point in the last six passes, or any completed pass into the penalty area. Excludes passes from the defending 40% of the pitch.”
Man City average 600 completed passes per game in league play in 2022-23; Lewandowski’s Barcelona average 560, and Osimhen’s Napoli average 540.
The only player near him — Lille’s Rémy Cabella — is a hybrid forward/midfielder, rather than a ‘true’ midfielder.