Erling Haaland sends reminder with three touches in Man City comeback

Fireworks greeted Manchester City's first goal of pre-season and Erling Haaland put the Premier League on notice to expect more explosive finishing from the record scorer.

Haaland terrorised the top flight in his first season in English football, smashing in a new high of 36 league goals and 52 in all competitions to redefine elite finishing in the division. And despite some desperate attempts to paint one goal from his final eight appearances as a potential issue for the future, the Norwegian needed just three touches to score against Yokohama F Marinos to show that his killer touch in front of goal has not gone anywhere.

That goal completed a 15-minute City turnaround in Tokyo, seeing them take the lead for the first time in this friendly seven minutes after the break having trailed 2-0 shortly before half-time. Results don't matter at this time of the year, but it is always nice to win.

Friendly matches can still produce real consequences, and while Pep Guardiola can accept the three goals conceded as an understandable sign of rustiness there was still plenty of room for improvement. An impressive Japanese side who were much fitter owing to them being in the middle of their season found ways to expose the City backline that will have to be closed by the time the Premier League begins again.

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Anderson Lopes earned the rare accolade of getting the better of Manu Akanji in a one-vs-one, the Swiss defender who so caught the eye last season for being difficult for attackers to get past showing indecision here to allow Lopes to get a shot away in the box. Worse was to follow from a City perspective, as Stefan Ortega - possibly as a