Haaland's headed goals surge 30% as Maresca and father Alfie reshape City's attack

Erling Haaland is converting headers at a career-high rate in 2024/25, with six of his 13 goals this season coming from his head — a 30-percentage-point jump on his previous best that signals a meaningful shift in his game.

The Norwegian has long been considered a surprisingly unconvincing aerial threat for a striker of his size. Pep Guardiola was so concerned that he once challenged Haaland on his heading during a touchline conversation at Old Trafford. Over his first three Premier League seasons, headed goals made up between 15% and 16% of his output at best, and he managed just three in the league last campaign.

This season that figure stands at 46%, with four of those six headed goals coming in the Premier League alone. Haaland is already within two of matching his single-season record of eight headed goals, set across all competitions in 2022/23.

The improvement is the product of deliberate work. Father Alfie Haaland was helping him practise in the garden in the days before a Champions League goal against Porto, and the striker has spoken openly about targeting marginal gains in every area of his game.

The system around him has also changed. Enzo Maresca has built Chelsea’s attack around getting the ball wide and delivering crosses into the box — a style that suits Haaland’s renewed aerial confidence. “They are part of the box where we can attack and we can be dangerous because we are quite big,” Maresca said in September. “Erling, Antoine, Nico, the ones that are playing at front. Enzo is very good arriving inside the box. So we need that kind of ball.”

City had not ranked among the top ten Premier League sides for successful open-play crosses in either of the previous two seasons, managing fewer than 100 in each campaign. Early evidence from this season suggests that has changed.

Haaland scored in Saturday’s 2-1 defeat at Aston Villa, extending his current Premier League scoring streak to seven consecutive matches — matching his longest-ever run in the competition. He will have the chance to set a new record when City host Brighton on Saturday.

While the 46% heading rate is unlikely to hold across a full season — a similar early-season spike last year did not sustain — the underlying trend is clear. With more crosses arriving and a more practised technique, Haaland looks set to finish the campaign with more headed goals than in any previous season.