– There are many, many reasons

– Sometimes he misses, sometimes he gets nothing from his teammates, sometimes it’s my fault, sometimes the opponent is good, says Guardiola to VG’s questions on Tuesday morning.

On Wednesday evening, Aston Villa await at home at the Etihad. Haaland’s trend in the biggest games is grim reading for the light blues this season.

VG asks Guardiola about his explanation for Haaland having one goal in six games against the other teams in the top five in the league this season.

In both league matches against Arsenal and Liverpool, he was relatively effectively neutralized.

And that led to stock market criticism:

He has one goal in four games against these two – and against Arsenal he didn’t get a single shot on target in two games.

– There are many, many reasons why this is so. In football, there is not just one reason, Guardiola insists.

This is the table of who has scored the most goals in head-to-head matches with the five best teams in this year’s season:

In the six games against top five opposition, Haaland has a total of 3.31 xG,Expected number of goals based on the size of the chance. 1.00 means that there should have been a goal scored with one hundred percent probability, while 0.00 means that there is zero percent chance of scoring in the situation. but only one netizen.

His one goal in 540 minutes against these teams was at home to Liverpool in November. And his results in the top games have been worse than last year.

– When you succeed or fail, there are many reasons for that. This is football, it’s a team sport – it’s not individual, like golf or tennis. Everyone needs each other, says Guardiola.

Haaland’s overall form is also receiving attention.

In the league, he has four goals in eight league games since returning from injury in January. Acceptable for most, but far behind the average goal Haaland had per game last year.

Overall, it looks better: Much because of the five goals against Luton in the FA Cup.

Symptomatic of Haaland’s poor results are City’s weak results in the top games.

Here is the table where the top five teams have met. City are the only team without a win against any other of the top five placed teams:

– In the games we have played against the top five or six, Aston Villa away were the worst, but in the others we performed very, very well, Guardiola has said about their form in the big games.

The 0-1 defeat they suffered away to Villa in December was “absolutely deserved”, Guardiola reiterated at Tuesday’s press conference.

– Sometimes the outcome is what it is, but the results in these top games are very different from last year, says Guardiola.

On Wednesday evening at 21.15, Aston Villa will therefore visit Manchester, one of these teams Haaland has gone goalless against.

Now they are in a situation where they have to win the rest of the season’s nine games, and they don’t then is it certain that they will win the Premier League title.

Chief writer Henry Winter in The Times is, however, little worried on the Norwegian’s behalf, even though it is now over.

– He has received a lot of criticism before, and he has made everyone who criticizes look stupid afterwards, he told VG on Sunday.