Johnny Nicholson: Haaland’s influence on City more complex than may appear

Everton hit rock bottom and Mudryk looks the real deal.

FOCAL POINT: Manchester City's Erling Haaland celebrates scoring their side's first goal of the game during the Premier League match at the Etihad Stadium.

Are all Haaland’s goals really making City any more successful?

Erling Haaland scored his fourth hat-trick of the season against Wolves, of course he did, and it dismissed any doubts about his or City’s form, after recent less than stellar performances. That’s 25 in 19 league games and 31 in 25 games in all competitions. The question City have to wrestle with is whether Haaland is really an asset or just someone who scores all the goals that others would have scored anyway. It might seem counter intuitive to think that someone with so many goals to their name could be anything other than an advantage, but before the Wolves game, City had scored 50 goals and conceded 20; across the whole of last season they netted 99 and conceded 26. Haaland and all his goals has barely changed the team’s goals per game and appears to have had an adverse effect on goals conceded. So perhaps Haaland’s influence on the team is a little more complex than it might initially appear.