Erling Haaland can embarrass pre-season critics again in Liverpool fixture

The hyperbole that surrounded one bad game seems utterly crazy right now.

When Erling Haaland failed to score on his competitive Manchester City debut against Liverpool in the Community Shield it was met with startling headlines. One newspaper declared the Norwegian had endured a 'horror show' in his City bow. All this after he had missed a sitter in the dying stages of the 3-1 defeat in the curtain-raiser.

There were plenty others ready to stick the knife in after just 90 minutes of action. Some had already labelled him an expensive flop after a £51million move from Borussia Dortmund.

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How foolish those critics now look. Haaland's stats ever since that first game are scarcely believable. He has scored a staggering 20 goals for City in just 13 appearances. His 15 in the Premier League alone means he is just nine short of last season's winning tally set by Son Heung-Min and Mo Salah.

He also looks destined, injury permitting, to break the competitions' record tally of 34 in a single season. All this with a whopping 29 league assignments still left to play.

This Sunday sees Haaland and his City teammates travel to Anfield to take on a Liverpool side who are languishing way down in 10th spot.

Jurgen Klopp's side have won just two of eight league matches and have already lost as many games so far as they did in the whole of last term. An away victory on Sunday would create a 16-point buffer between the two sides that were supposed to slug it out for the league crown.

After all the early season criticism following that rare blank against Liverpool, Haaland now has the perfect setting to hammer home just how wrong and off-the-ball those detractors were.

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