How Man City and Haaland buck trend of struggling big clubs

Almost all the great clubs are worse: That's been a running theme in European soccer for the 2022-23 season.

Chelsea have gotten worse with every transfer purchase it made. Liverpool chased shiny scoring objects, forgot about its stale midfield and paid the price. Bayern Munich lost forward Robert Lewandowski, replaced him with a 17-year old and yet another winger, and panic-fired an expensive manager during the season's stretch run.

Paris Saint-Germain signed young, new players with one vision (Vitinha and Nuno Mendes), paired them with an expensive attacking front that has a different vision and hired a manager (Christophe Galtier) who has yet another different vision. Tottenham Hotspur hired someone (Cristian Stellini) who is the opposite of the ex-manager (Antonio Conte) for basically the fourth straight time, and it's catching up to them (while they potentially prepare to do it for a fifth time).

This flirtation with parity has had intriguing effects. Arsenal has led the Premier League for much of the season. Napoli are on their way to a first Scudetto in 33 years. Bayern cannot shake Borussia Dortmund in the Bundesliga race no matter how many times BVB flubs chances to take charge at the top. AC Milan and Inter Milan are both in the Champions League semifinals despite each battling poor runs of form in Serie A this year.

For a while, Manchester City were kind enough to join this group with their own version of confusing listlessness. City boasted the most celebrated manager in the game in Pep Guardiola and what was, on paper, the best team in Europe last season. Then they added master goal scorer Erling Haaland and soon-to-be World Cup hero Julian Alvarez (not to mention beloved Leeds defensive midfielder Kalvin