PORTO, Portugal — Manchester City can always rely on Erling Haaland … until they can’t, and that’s when Enzo Maresca will really have to earn his money as Pep Guardiola’s successor as manager.
Haaland, the goalscoring phenomenon who carried Norway to the quarterfinals of the World Cup this summer, delivered yet again for Man City by scoring both goals in their 2-0 win against FC Porto in Portugal to kick off their Champions League campaign.
Every time he adds his name to the scoresheet, Haaland seems to create a new record or a piece of club history and in Estadio do Dragao on Tuesday, the 26-year-old moved into third place in City’s all-time scoring charts. With 167 goals, he is still 93 behind Sergio Aguero at the top of the list but level with the former Argentina forward as the club’s leading scorer in Champions League competition at 36 goals.
Having also scored in this competition for FC Salzburg and Borussia Dortmund, Haaland took his overall Champions League tally to 59, moving him ahead of Thomas Müller into seventh spot in the competition’s all-time scorer list.
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That’s what Haaland does. He has now scored 304 goals in 390 club games since starting out as a 16-year-old with Norwegian team Bryne. His two goals against Porto mean he now has five in five games in all competitions for City this season.
But there is an overriding sense with this City team that once Haaland’s goals stop — either through a loss of form or unavailability — it will leave a hole that Maresca cannot fill.
It would be stretching it too far to suggest that Haaland is City’s greatest strength and potentially their biggest weakness — goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma might just lay claim to the weakness tag — but Maresca doesn’t have a reliable option to play at centre-forward even if he just wanted to give Haaland a rest.
And that is the problem. While Haaland is fit and scoring, City can challenge for every competition and beat any opponent.
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But without him, it would be a different story– and unless he has the powers of fitness that only Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have seemed to possess over the last 20 years, then Haaland will have to miss games.
Since he arrived at City from Dortmund ahead of the 2022-23 season, Haaland has only missed 23 games in four seasons, but he is one of the busiest footballers on the planet. With all the competitions he teams qualify for, he has perform in them all until the latter stages — since the start of the Club World Cup in June 2025, he has played 73 games for club and country.
Does something have to give? Maybe, maybe not, but City are walking on a tightrope with Haaland because of their lack of cover.
Omar Marmoush’s loan move to Tottenham last month saw City’s designated back-up for Haaland leave the club, so that leaves Maresca with having to deploy wingers such as Antoine Semenyo and Iliman Ndiaye or attacking midfielder Phil Foden in a central role.
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They are all good players, and nobody could realistically be a like-for-like replacement for Haalanbd, but they are not centre-forwards.
Arsenal have Kai Havertz and Viktor Gyökeres, Liverpool can use Cody Gakpo as a centre-forward if Alexander Isak is unavailable, while Chelsea signed Danny Welbeck this summer as cover for João Pedro.
Even Manchester United, City’s opponents in the Manchester derby at Old Trafford on Sunday, have the options of Bryan Mbeumo, Marcus Rashford or Matheus Cunha if Michael Carrick needs to play without Benjamin Sesko up-front.
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Haaland is quite clearly irreplaceable, but it is unusually careless of City not to have at least one player in their squad who is a recognised centre-forward, even as nothing more than an insurance policy.
But against Porto, they didn’t need the fallback option because Haaland scored twice in the second-half — his first a header and the second a calm stoppage time tap-in.
So thanks to Haaland, there was no danger of Donnarumma’s nervousness in goal proving costly in terms of the result. The former AC Milan and Paris Saint-Germain goalkeeper, Italy’s No. 1, has had a shaky start to the season and has looked uncomfortable with the ball at his feet and when dealing with corners.
He almost conceded an embarrassing goal against Coventry at the weekend, when he allowed the ball to run under his foot before racing back to clear off the line, and there as another worrying moment when an attempted clearance hit Porto winger William Gomes and the ball bounced narrowly wide of the goal.
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For a keeper with such a lofty reputation, Donnarumma threatens to be a liability if he continues to perform so erratically, but while Haaland is doing the business at the other end, the 27-year-old is getting away with it.
But if he makes a mistake in a game when Haaland doesn’t score, the focus will shift more sharply onto Donnarumma.
Right now, City’s season is being defined by Haaland’s goals. They won’t want it to end up being defined by Donnarumma’s mistakes.
