Criticism of Erling Haaland's 38 touches at Man City is missing the point completely

If the first three weeks of the season are anything to judge, it's going to be a long old campaign when it comes to Erling Haaland.

After a quiet Community Shield - Haaland's first 90 minutes in months against a fitter Liverpool outfit - the new City number nine was deemed a striker who simply wouldn't be able to cut it in the Premier League. Yet after his clinical brace against West Ham, coming from a very similar performance, he was suddenly getting transferred into millions of Fantasy Football squads and being backed to break Alan Shearer's all-time goals record.

Then, when he only managed to get an assist against Bournemouth - a game effectively over at half time - the external talk is back to doubting his chances at City. After the Bournemouth game, the criticism appears to be centred around the fact that Haaland made just eight touches before being substituted, following 30 touches against West Ham.

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Apparently, that's simply not good enough in the Premier League, with a graphic doing the rounds on Twitter of Haaland's involvement against Bournemouth among the lowest in the last 20 years of the Premier League.

Yet Haaland got the all-important first assist against the Cherries to break their resilience, taking his Premier League record to two goals and one assist in just 150 minutes of football. City have scored six goals, and Haaland has been directly involved in three of them.

Pep Guardiola wants City to work on involving Haaland more, but accepts that if he has five players around him, that's an incredibly difficult task for any player. Both Guardiola and Bournemouth boss Scott Parker agreed that with so much