Erling Haaland shows subtle improvement beyond devastating Man City hat-trick vs Nottingham Forest

Manchester City had 85 per cent possession up to the moment Erling Haaland turned in Phil Foden's cross to open the scoring against Nottingham Forest, but Haaland had not seen the ball once. There still appears to be an issue with Haaland's lack of touches, even though he averaged a goal every 15 touches going into this one.

The fact that he scored with his first touch against Forest after 12 minutes is another reminder that Haaland's lack of touches isn't a problem for anyone at City. It's a problem for defences to ensure he's not being as destructive when he does touch it. His second and third touches set up and scored the second goal, hammering home that fact, before some good build-up play and headed hat-trick goal made it three in 27 minutes and back-to-back hat-tricks in back-to-back halves.

For all the focus on his touches and his goals, there was evidence of Erling Haaland improving when it comes to his all-round play as he became more involved in the game than simply scoring goals for fun.

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Pep Guardiola has reiterated that Haaland will have to adapt to City in time, and there were promising signs that he is becoming more in tune with the role of a number nine in coming short and laying the ball off. He made his own second goal by doing that, and created a crossing chance, too, capping a devastating performance that Forest simply couldn't handle.

As City had a flurry of early corners, they kept four players back in a curious set-up with two defenders on the halfway line and Bernardo Silva and Phil Foden midway in the Forest half, both closely marked. One corner saw Julian Alvarez get blocked after a low cutback, and another saw Foden come wide to get the pass early, take