As Erling Haaland discovered in Saturday's draw with Chelsea, even the best strikers have days when they forget.
The Premier League's top scorer had nine shots without scoring, making him the most without a goal in a game in 79 appearances for Manchester City.
Those were also good opportunities. Kevin De Bruyne's cross to the Norwegian was particularly impressive towards the end, with the hosts leading 1-0. Haaland met the ball in front of the goal, but the ball went wide.
At that stage, it looked like City's long unbeaten run at the Etihad Stadium, which dates back to November 2022, was coming to an end, but Rodri had other ideas and an 83rd-minute goal finally put Chelsea's resistance to an end. stopped.
City failed to find a winner and fell behind Liverpool and Arsenal in the title race, but manager Josep Guardiola blamed the draw more on his star striker's inability to find the back of the net in the first half. This was attributed to poor performance.
“He will score in the next game.”
Seven of Haaland's shots were headers, including one that went over the bar from Julian Alvarez's cross in the opening minutes.
His xG, or expected goals, was 1.71, which was also his highest without a goal in a City game. However, only two of his attempts tested Chelsea keeper Dolde Petrovic. Haaland also had a great chance to score with his feet, slicing the volley wide from Phil Foden's cross.
But Guardiola denied blaming the 23-year-old striker for the lack of goals, pointing to his scoring record as a reason not to start teaching the Norwegian how to create the net.
Guardiola said after the game: “It's good that he took nine shots. He'll score in the next game.''
“Listen, I was a soccer player. I played for 11 years and scored 11 goals. What a number?
“One goal a season, that's my statistic. So I'm not the right person to give advice to the strikers and what they have to do. We create chances and give him too. He had a chance and he will score in the next game.”
“I'm not blaming you. [him for] It's… it's football and it's human beings. As a team and as a group, we couldn't perform at our level in the first half. ”
“We deserved to win”
Guardiola felt his team responded well after being put on the back foot by former City forward Raheem Sterling and insisted they should have still won the game despite coming close to defeat. .
“Our play deserved the win,” he added. “We had the opportunity and there is no question that we deserved it.
“The first half was tight. They took their chances in transition. Our dynamics weren't right, but we had a couple of clearances.” [chances] Too.
“But we started playing after scoring the goal. After Raheem we reacted.” [Sterling] We scored a goal and the second half was really good with the way we played and everything. ”
Rodri laments poor defense
Rodri's goal continued his long unbeaten streak. It's been more than a year since Rodri went on a losing streak of 55 games.
However, the Spanish midfielder feels City deserved no better, having seen a poor defensive performance before the suspension, and also feels that some big decisions have gone against the team. Ta.
“Whether it's a point or a draw, of course we want to win and we want our performance.” [in the] In the second half we deserved to give a little more, but when you defend like we did, you don't get more,” he explained.
“It's in our hands and we have to do better individually and we can't finish the game like this. I don't blame anyone, but if we want to win the league , we have to take responsibility.”
“We had a chance to win and we felt like we had the momentum, but sometimes we get a little frustrated and the ball doesn't go in. I don't want to criticize the referee, but I don't remember a game where there was so much VAR.” There were checks, but we didn't have any. Hey, hey, you always look at the referee's face and now it's 'Go ahead, go ahead'.”
As a result, City have fallen to third place, four points behind leaders Liverpool, but there are still games left. If they beat Brentford here on Tuesday, they can close the gap and overtake second-placed Arsenal.
“There's still a long way to go until the end of the season,” Rodri added. “We have to win against Brentford.
“We were going very well, but none of the three of us knew [City, Liverpool and Arsenal] Win every match until the end. We have to move on to the next game with a strong mentality.”
