Manwan: Can Haaland break 0 goals in 7 finals & 5 Wembley trips 0 goals curse?

On May 16, Manchester City will compete with Crystal Palace for the FA Cup championship this season. Before the game, the Manchester Evening News raised a question when talking about Haaland: Can he break the final goal drought and Wembley's goal drought?

In Haaland's statistics, it's hard to find a stadium where he can't score. So far he has played for Manchester City, he has played 36 away games with the team (including neutral positions), and he has scored 28 goals. Of the eight away games where Haaland has not scored, 5 times are those that Haaland has only been to once so far (Istanbul, Athens, Dortmund, Portuguese and Juventus). Haaland has played twice in the other three stadiums (Leipzig, Brentford, Real Madrid).

Of the 120 goals scored for Manchester City, 71 were scored by Haaland at the Etihad Stadium. However, the 38th stadium that Haaland played for Manchester City, Wembley Stadium, is the most difficult place for him to conquer. Haaland has visited Wembley five times, but has not scored a single goal so far.

includes two FA Cup finals, one semifinal and two Community Shield matches. In addition to the Etihad Stadium, Wembley is the stadium he played the most games for Manchester City. And at other stadiums, he has only been to twice at most and cannot score a goal. In addition, Haaland's performance in Manchester City's finals was not ideal. So far, he has not scored in the seven finals he represented Manchester City (including the Champions League, the FA Cup, the Community Shield and the UEFA Super Cup). If the statistics are expanded to the semi-finals, it would be 0 goals in 10 games.

Why is this?

From the importance of semi-finals and finals, the competition is often extremely tense and cautious. Due to Haaland's threat, the defense will pay special attention to his defense. Moreover, opponents who can reach the finals usually have enough defensive ability to limit Haaland. For example, his opponents at Wembley are Manchester United and Arsenal, while his debut in England at the 2022 Community Shield Cup was against Liverpool. The only exception to this rule is the FA Cup semi-finals against the Championship team Sheffield United in the 22-23 season, when Mahrez scored a hat trick. After the score became 3-0, Haaland was replaced to save his energy to deal with the next triple-champion competition. In addition to this big victory, Manchester City's victory in the rest of the games Haaland experienced at Wembley was either a small win or a penalty shootout. It can be seen how difficult it is to score a goal at Wembley Stadium.

In the above seven finals, Haaland had 6 shots on the right and 6 shots missed, with an average of 1.7 shots per game. He averaged 4 shots per game this season, which means that in key games, Haaland's chances of firing have been significantly reduced. Haaland didn't even make a single shot attempt in a row against Arsenal and Manchester United's Wembley Community Shield.

This data may give Guardiola a headache when considering how to arrange the team against Crystal Palace, especially considering that Haaland failed to get enough space and support in the last round of the league against Southampton, resulting in poor performance on the team's offensive line.

Guardiola increased the team's width by substitutions and added more helpers around Haaland, which almost cracked the opponent's tenacious defense. Meanwhile, Guardiola should recognize the attack system led by Malmush, who performed well against teams like Nottingham Forest. It seems almost impossible to get Haaland to be on the bench, but not completely impossible.

However, based on a necessity, Haaland will not sit on the bench, that is: never underestimate him. Haaland makes a living by breaking records and spells, which makes him even more dangerous when facing Crystal Palace. And Haaland scored 6 goals against Crystal Palace four times, which also reminds us that if there is a statistic that is negative for Haaland, there will be more data showing his true strength.