Club World Cup, beware: Hungry Erling Haaland is the big winner of Man City's early-summer spending spree

Haaland had a massively disappointing season on both a collective and individual level. Having won the treble in his first season at City, retained the Premier League title in his second while collecting a second-successive Golden Boot, he ended his third season without any trophies at all while finishing third in the league's top-scorer rankings behind Mohamed Salah and Alexander Isak. His tally of 22 league goals was the joint-lowest of his career, and although 31 strikes in all competitions is a tally most strikers would be pleased with, Haaland could not hide his dissatisfaction with his achievements, as well as those of his team.

"I haven’t been good enough. I haven't helped the team enough," he told ESPN. "In the end, we haven’t been good enough. Every single one of us hasn't been good enough and we haven't been at our best, so when you are not at your best you aren't going to win games in this country because it's so hard. This season has been tough. It is not nice to lose so many games. It is boring and not fun. The club has set the standards so the bar is so high that this season is a catastrophic season."

It was just not the results that frustrated the striker, as Haaland also pointed at a lack of desire across the squad, saying that held City back more than they should have done while refusing to blame the many injuries they suffered; "You can find excuses. Injuries, many injuries at bad times, but in the end we haven't been performing well enough. We haven't had fully the hunger inside of us. Sometimes you just need to run. We haven’t run enough this season."

Even with his injury problems and his reduced goal count, Haaland was still one of City's best players last season. The problem was that the other usual suspects did not turn up. Phil Foden experienced a huge drop off from the form which made him the PFA Player of the Season in 2023-24, as he scored just seven Premier League goals and provided two assists compared to his 19 goals and 11 assists the previous year.

Kevin De Bruyne's final campaign with City was handicapped by injuries as the man who used to be Haaland's biggest provider of goals endured his second-least productive season of his 10 at City. The Belgian set up just one goal for the Norwegian all season, and given that he set up four goals for Haaland in one game at Luton Town the previous campaign, it is no wonder Haaland failed to fire at his usual terrifying rate.

Bernardo Silva's Premier League goal contributions dropped from 15 in 2023-24 to just eight while Julian Alvarez's 20 goal contributions left with him to Atletico Madrid. His replacement, Omar Marmoush, only arrived in late January, and although his seven goals were welcome, he didn't register a single assist. Rodri, responsible for 17 goals and assists in 2023-24 on his way to winning the Ballon d'Or, missed almost the entire season with a serious knee injury.

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The cavalry has now arrived in the form of new signings, and if Haaland found last season "boring", he has a lot to be excited about in regards to what's coming next. City have been swift and decisive in the transfer market and snapped up three players who know how to create goals for others while also scoring a healthy amount themselves.

Cherki is the standout new arrival when it comes to supporting Haaland as he is the defacto replacement for De Bruyne. City fans might be understandably disappointed to have missed out on Liverpool-bound Florian Wirtz, but Cherki is a thrilling prospect.

The France international first came to wider attention at the age of 16 when he became Lyon's youngest-ever scorer, and at one point was compared to Lionel Messi while being linked to Real Madrid. But after a couple of underwhelming seasons and failing to get on with certain coaches, he exploded into life last term, contributing to 31 goals in all competitions. Cherki scored eight times and set up another 11 in Ligue 1 despite a hugely disappointing season for his club, while he was even more impressive in the Europa League, contributing to 12 goals in his side's run to the quarter-finals before their agonising defeat to Manchester United, against whom he netted in both legs.

If Cherki is the rough diamond brought in to fill the boots of De Bruyne as City's primary playmaker, then Reijnders feels like the heir to Ilkay Gundogan. The German might have had an underwhelming second stint at the Etihad Stadium - which should not really have been surprising given the 34-year-old's age - but his feats from the previous years will never be forgotten.

Reijnders, by contrast, is in the prime of his career. He was named the Best Midfielder in Serie A last term as well as being included in the league's Team of the Season. He scored 15 times in all competitions while adding four assists for a struggling AC Milan side, and has worked hard on improving his productivity. That's good news for City as they look to ease the goal-scoring burden on Haaland, who scored triple the amount of league goals of his nearest challengers, Marmoush and Foden, this past season.

"I like to help the attackers, create chances and try to score a goal by myself sometimes. As a midfielder, it’s important to score goals as well," Reijnders explained. "Two years ago, I didn’t score that many goals and I worked on it that summer and seeing what I needed to do better in front of the goal. This season, it worked out and I got on the scoresheet more."

A self-described 'box-to-box' midfielder, Reijnders should help City recover the intensity they lost last year. In the words of City's new director of football, Hugo Viana: "Tijjani adds extra energy, composure and creativity to our midfield, and working with Pep and our coaches will only see him go from strength to strength."

As well as more creativity in midfield and attack, City should be able to source more goals from full-back thanks to the arrival of Ait-Nouri. The Algeria international set up seven Premier League goals for Wolves in 2024-25, a tally that was only bettered in the City squad by Savinho's eight assists. He also scored four himself and should spark a return to City's way of playing from three or four years ago, when Joao Cancelo was one of the team's most productive players.

Haaland's arrival led Guardiola to re-jig his defence and introduce inverted full-backs who would drift into midfield. It bore fruit in the previous two campaigns, but the decline of Kyle Walker and Rico Lewis' struggles for consistency meant City became too predictable in their build-up play, and therefore easier to defend against. Haaland, though, also thrives when there is more movement inside the box, and Ait-Nouri should lead to City becoming a more potent force down the flanks while creating more chances for their hitman to score from.

Haaland had admitted that it was natural for City's hunger to have dropped after all their success, but the arrival of new blood should lead to an increased desire. None of the three new signings have won a major trophy before and they will be determined to lift some silverware at City. And what better place to start than the Club World Cup?

Guardiola's side begin their quest for world domination on Wednesday in Philadelphia against Wydad Casablanca. Wydad are Morocco's most successful club and three-times champions of Africa, who qualified thanks to their 2022 AFC Champions League conquest. But City will likely be far too strong for them, and thus the game presents a real chance for Haaland to fill his boots and get his confidence back. The Norwegian should be aiming to score two or more goals against Wydad, and he should have his eyes on a hat-trick in the next game against Al Ain of Abu Dhabi, the most recent winners of the Asian Champions League.

City will need to take maximum points from their first two games before facing Juventus in what is almost certain to be a shootout for the coveted top spot in Group G. City lost 2-0 at Juve last season amid their terrible run of results in November and December, and will likely need to avenge that result so they can clinch first place and avoid a potential last-16 meeting with Real Madrid, who have knocked them out of the Champions League in three of the last four years.

If City do win the group they are likely to earn a far more comfortable last-16 fixture against either Red Bull Salzburg - the club where Haaland's career really took off -, Pachuca or Al-Hilal. Assuming they progress, Inter would then likely await them in the quarter-finals, with Bayern Munich or Atletico Madrid being their most probable opponents in the semis. Newly-crowned Champions League winners Paris Saint-Germain, Chelsea and Real Madrid are predicted to be the strongest teams on the other side of the draw and may await City in the final at MetLife Stadium if they were to make it all the way.

City should be aiming to reach the quarter-finals as a bare minimum, but given how Inter were brutally destroyed by PSG in Europe's showpiece two weeks ago, Guardiola's side should really be making it to the semis.

As well as their three shiny new signings, City will also able to count on a weapon that they did not have at their disposal for most of the past season: Rodri.

City's missing midfield lynchpin was the underlying factor behind their struggles last season. Without him, their midfield was full of holes which the opposition gleefully ran into and exploited. They also missed his attacking contributions, namely his 32 goal contributions from the previous two seasons.

Most of all, Guardiola's side missed the sense of invincibility that Rodri gave them. When he made his comeback off the bench against Bournemouth after 240 days out from a serious knee injury, he brought his tally of unbeaten Premier League games up to 48. City have still only lost one match (exclusing penalty shootouts) since November 2022 with Rodri in the starting XI, the 2024 FA Cup final defeat by Manchester United. Without him, they were beaten 16 times last season.

Rodri returns as the current holder of the Ballon d'Or, and while City will be careful not to put too much pressure on him so soon after completing his recovery, there is also a huge appetite within the club to see the Spain international back in action. It is no coincidence that the drop in hunger that Haaland talked about, and which Bernardo Silva also pointed to late in the season, took hold while Rodri was away.

"Rodri, beyond the Ballon d'Or, just as a player, is such an important player for this club in every possible way, on the pitch and off the pitch. So, he was a huge miss for us this season. Massive miss," said City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak in his annual post-season interview. "But credit to him, he's been a top, top, top professional. He's now fully fit and he's ready. I have no doubt Rodri is going to come back to the heights of the Ballon d'Or year and more. I'm so excited about him coming back."

Guardiola has always responded ruthlessly to setbacks, and it is worth remembering that the last time the coach ended a season without a trophy, City went on to blow everyone else out of the water and swept to a record-breaking 100 points in the Premier League. It seems that City's biggest motivation for the Club World Cup, as well as for next season, will be a determination to make up for the past 12 months.

"If there's one thing I'd like right now, it’s to turn that page from last season and just immediately start focusing on next season," Khaldoon said. "Nobody feels good about how we finished the season. They want to come back, and they want to come back hungry. Erling didn't want to go on vacation. He wanted to stay with the physios and prepare for next season. That's the attitude you want and that's exactly why you see me so positive. We're going to come back strong, with a lot of positivity."

Haaland channelled that same energy when he declared, "we need to find something inside our stomach again to attack the season." And now the striker is primed and ready for his revenge mission, armed with three new team-mates who will be eager to get in his good books. The world has been warned.