To say Erling Haaland's introduction English football has been scintillating would be a monumental understatement.
The giant Norwegian notched a first half brace in Manchester City's dominant Champions League win at home to Copenhagen.
That took his tally to a scarcely-believable 18 goals in just 12 outings for his new employers. He is breaking all kinds of records and sure enough another one was ticked off against the Danish champions in his action-packed 45-minute cameo. That brace - the first a ferocious, lashed effort and the second an instinctive tap-in - saw the 22-year-old match Lionel Messi for the longest scoring run under Pep Guardiola’s management.
The Norwegian sensation was taken off at half-time by Guardiola, stopping his hopes of netting two straight hat-tricks in front of the Etihad faithful in their tracks. But Haaland will have the chance to take Mesi's record under Guardiola outright when City welcome Southampton to the Etihad on Saturday.
Speaking on BT Sport's coverage of tonight's game, ex-City defender Joleon Lescott believes Haaland is already representing something entirely different than to what Guardiola has previously worked with.
The former England international said: "There have been comparisons to Messi and obviously there is a lot of difference to their styles, but I don’t think Pep will have worked with anyone as instinctive as Haaland before."
The stats back that theory up, with Haaland registering just 11 touches in his 45 minutes on the pitch against Copenhagen, with four of those shots - and two ending up the net.
That kind of efficiency has rarely, if ever, been seen before.
Source: m.allfootballapp.com