The season when Liverpool won the league, City scored 102 league goals. When you said ''obviously a different situation'', what do you mean?
This is what I’m not understanding either. What difference does it make where the goals are coming from? In fact, I’d say I’d say it’s a good thing to have scored almost as many as City with the goals spread across the team.
Apparently we’re “reliant” upon our wide players scoring. Too right. We play with a false nine and Saka / Martinelli up front. Check our average positions, they both often ahead of our striker.
That’s like saying City are “reliant” upon Haaland to score goals. They are, in the sense that their tactics are geared towards the attributes of the players they have. Like every other team.
Arsenal’s goals tally was within touching distance of City, despite being without our main striker for several months. That means our goals are the result of passing combinations, partnerships within the team and established patterns of play. Those are the complete opposite of freak circumstances that disappear overnight.
If anything, reliance on a striker scoring an unheard of amount of goals is the more precarious situation, due to the risk of injury.
City as a team scored less goals this season with Haaland than they did in 21/22. And 19/20. And 18/19. And 17/18. A singular focus on having a high-scoring central striker is a little bit odd.