Erling Haaland is making Lionel Messi comparison redundant at Man City

It has taken about six weeks for Erling Haaland to go from being compared to Darwin Nunez to being spoken about in the same breath as Lionel Messi.

There really has been no choice, with the Norwegian banging in goal after goal at a level that English football and even the Champions League has never seen. As Pep Guardiola said ahead of this game, his record is undeniably the best for his age.

City's manager has had the pleasure to coach one of the greatest in the game when he coaxed the best out of Lionel Messi over a decade ago, and you suspect that whatever Haaland achieves in the game Messi will always be No.1 for the boyhood Barcelona fan and player who saw his coaching career take off with the Argentine phenomenon at his right hand. As with anything involving Haaland though, be wary of making any cast-iron predictions.

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Guardiola was asked how the two compared after Haaland's hat-trick in the derby, and said that while the Norwegian needs his teammates to score goals Messi could do everything on his own. This is probably true - despite his reputation in the Bundesliga, it is unlikely to see City's No.9 slaloming past opponents in the way that Messi has throughout his career.

And yet, at City, it doesn't matter. They don't need a player to do everything for them because not how Guardiola has built the unit, it is a collective machine designed to create chances.

It has been finely tuned over the last few years to be the dominant force in English football and one of the leading sides in Europe, but at the same time has been missing that vital cog at the top to make everything look as simple as it does on the rest of the pitch.

In an instant, Haaland has emphatically