Erling Haaland has scored 19 goals in 12 Manchester City appearances. Even the most optimistic Blues fans wouldn’t have imagined such a sentence being written when the towering striker arrived at the Etihad in July.
That number of matches reduces to 11 for those who disregard the Community Shield as a ‘proper’ competitive fixture – just one of two games he has blanked in this season, the 4-0 win over Bournemouth being the other.
His goals are firing City to comfortable wins, including Sunday’s 6-3 dismantling of Manchester United in which Haaland netted his third (yes, third) hat-trick for the champions just two months since the season began.
They are also helping his club in another aspect too. Haaland has debunked the theory that foreign imports need time to bed into the Premier League and has already struck up a fantastic relationship with his teammates. READ MORE: Guardiola explains why Haaland came off at half-time vs Copenhagen His magnet-like ability to fit the net is easing pressure on his first-team colleagues, allowing them to play their natural game without the pressure of having to beat the goalkeeper themselves.