Erling Haaland Faces Difficult Second Manchester City Season

SHEFFIELD, ENGLAND - AUGUST 27: Erling Haaland of Manchester City scores their sides first goal ... [+] during the Premier League match between Sheffield United and Manchester City at Bramall Lane on August 27, 2023 in Sheffield, England. (Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

After rising at the back post to power a header into Sheffield United's net, Erling Haaland puffed his cheeks out in relief.

The Manchester City striker is known for his celebrations, but it seemed to take a pitch invader jumping on his back to liven him up to the fact he’d bagged a goal.

Belatedly he dusted off a couple of the hand gestures that became so commonplace last year when he scored an incredible 52 goals in 53 games.

The reason he looked relieved rather than jubilant at opening the scoring was simple; he’d already missed a golden opportunity to put the team 0-1 up from the penalty spot.

Another Haaland goal looked inevitable when sent the goalkeeper the wrong way, but having angled his strike too acutely, the Norweigan saw the ball cannon off the post.

At one stage it looked like another frustrating afternoon for the tall Norweigan who a week earlier had contrived to miss several chances against Newcastle United.

To even be having such a conversation about a striker, who has now registered three goals in as many games, is harsh in the extreme, but with Haaland it’s different.

This is a player who in his first season in English soccer broke the Premier PINC League record for goals in a single campaign, a man who was part of only the second-ever team to win the Treble.

His remarkable success means he must deal with the weight of sky-high expectations and records so unprecedented they look almost impossible to match.

In this sense, Haaland’s challenge this season is a microcosm of what the entire club faces: how to follow up near-perfection?

Well an answer, of sorts, can be found in the managerial dugout.

Manchester City's Spanish manager Pep Guardiola (L) speaks with Manchester City's Norwegian striker ... [+] #09 Erling Haaland as they leave the pitch at half-time during the English Premier League football match between Burnley and Manchester City at Turf Moor in Burnley, north-west England on August 11, 2023. (Photo by Darren Staples / AFP) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE. No use with unauthorized audio, video, data, fixture lists, club/league logos or 'live' services. Online in-match use limited to 120 images. An additional 40 images may be used in extra time. No video emulation. Social media in-match use limited to 120 images. An additional 40 images may be used in extra time. No use in betting publications, games or single club/league/player publications. / (Photo by DARREN STAPLES/AFP via Getty Images)

Pep Guardiola might not have been there against Sheffield United, as he continues to recover from surgery, but his relentless and demanding nature has already been very visible this season.

In his first 45 minutes of the season, Erling Haaland had scored two goals against Burnley, however, as the half-time whistle sounded Guardiola came running onto the field to confront him.

He grabbed the striker’s arm and began shouting at Haaland for calling for a forward pass by Bernardo Silva.

Catching sight of the cameraman who was capturing the dispute in all its glory, Guardiola pushed the lens away.

Viewers and pundits alike could barely believe their eyes.

"There’ll be some people who’ll love the intensity of that and say that that’s why he’s the best manager on the planet,” said former Manchester United defender Gary Neville in the aftermath.

"Then there’ll be others who will say that you shouldn’t do that in a public forum, grabbing his arm in front of the cameras.

"I played for one of the most intense managers in the history of the game - but he’d never have done that on the pitch in such a way," he added.

The incident is not an outlier, it is only the most recent example of Guardiola’s hunger for success which has been the driving force behind Manchester City’s dominance the past few years.

Although many fanbases and sections of the media have retrospectively characterized the Treble win in 2022/23 as some sort of inevitability, there were large parts of the campaign where that simply was not the case.

There were moments in the campaign where he single-handedly seemed to be pushing everyone forward, the players, staff and even the supporters.

"There's nothing from the stomach, from the guts and we were lucky but if we don't change we will drop points," he famously said in the wake of a 4-2 comeback win against Tottenham Hotspur mid-way through the season, “maybe we are so comfortable with winning four Premier Leagues in five years."

As the manager of some of the most successful sides in sporting history, Guardiola understands better than anyone how dangerous past achievements can be.

The moment a team, or indeed an individual, begins to admire how they earned the crown on their head, a rival will snatch it.

Generating the motivation to continue to succeed requires the same hunger as if nothing has been earned.

Reputation and legacy count for nothing until you are retired and every season you start with 0.

Slipping into the trap of nostalgia or expecting success to flow without graft results in failure.

As the greatest American Football player of all time, Tom Brady pointed out on the Drive with Jim Farley podcast in 2022, a lot of people will wait until things are going badly to improve them, what sets the great apart is their attempts to improve whilst successful.

“When things are going good, you have to be very conscious and aware of why things are going good. And then try to continue to repeat those things, rather than say, ‘Well, things went great because I’m just so great at all these things, and they’re going to continue to go great,’” he explained.

The evidence is Haaland has the right mentality to mean he is more likely than not to maintain his standards.

When asked after the opening day of the season against Burnley whether the brace he’d scored had him preparing for a season where he could break his own Premier League goalscoring record, the striker said it wasn’t on his mind.

“I cannot think too much about this,” Haaland replied.

“If you think about this, I think you will become a bit crazy in your head. For me it’s about the restart, of course, it looks like people forget fast in this game that we are Treble winners and everything.

“We have to try and chase things again.”