Erling Haaland may be a goalscoring freak, but he is perfectly capable of off days.
That is precisely what happened for much of Saturday afternoon, with the Norway striker struggling to find a way past an inspired Alphonse Areola in the West Ham goal.
Though he did eventually find the finishing touch required late in the game, a goal which made the scoreline 3-1 and put the result beyond doubt, he was also guilty of failing to find the back of the net on multiple occasions.
The striker had a mammoth 9 shots, of which three were saved by the West Ham shot-stopper, and amassed a total of 2.56 expected goals, despite coming away with just one to show for it.
He saw a further four efforts blocked and missed the target with another before eventually finding the back of the net, taking him to seven Premier League goals for the season after just five games, and helping Manchester City continue their 100% start to the season.
As per data collecting site whoscored, his missed efforts included 5 “big chances”, and missing all five set a new Premier League record.
😖 Erling Haaland missed 5 big chances in Manchester City’s 3-1 win at West Ham on Saturday; No player has missed more in a Premier League match since we started collecting Opta data from 2009/10 pic.twitter.com/t21WQSEHtT
— WhoScored.com (@WhoScored) September 17, 2023
Of course, barring injury the striker will almost certainly scoop the golden boot once more this season after his incredible 36-goal season last campaign and his excellent start this time round, which puts him three clear of the chasing pack already after just five games.
Still, it’s nice to know he’s human after all.
