How Erling Haaland has affected Julián Álvarez’s role at Man City

It is not easy to live in the shadow of Erling Haaland. With his enormous goalscoring ability and his overwhelming presence on the pitch, the Norwegian takes centre stage. His latest ‘victim’ is Julián Álvarez, who this season has improved his numbers from last season, but since the Norwegian’s reappearance after his injury, he has not scored again.

In the ten games Haaland was absent, Julián established himself as a starter under Pep Guardiola and scored five goals, adding another two on the day the Norwegian made his comeback. Since then, the Argentine striker has failed to convert another goal. He played as a starter in four of the next five matches, but in the last three games, he was left out of the starting eleven. In contrast, Haaland has scored nine goals since his return, although five of them came in the same game against Luton in the FA Cup.

Julián has now gone seven games in a row without scoring, plus the first leg of the Champions League round of 16 against Copenhagen, in which he did not play. It is his longest goal drought this season, in which he has 15 goals and 12 assists in 39 games, and is the sixth player with the most minutes played of the entire squad. Only Kevin De Bruyne has distributed as many assists as the Argentinian this term for Manchester City. To appreciate the level at which Julián is performing this season, it is enough to compare his numbers with those of last season, in which he scored 17 goals and provided five assists in 49 games.

Copenhagen visit the Etihad on Wednesday in the second leg of their Champions League last-16 tie, which after a 1-3 first-leg scoreline would appear to be a favourable scenario for Julián to break his goal drought. However, the Champions League is a competition in which Guardiola is hardly counting on the Argentinian, despite the fact that the world champion always responds when he is on the pitch. He has scored four goals in the four games he has played in the competition, but he has only started one and in the last two games Guardiola has not given him a single minute.