Man City have quietly set a new standard to define their season

There was plenty that got pushed to the back of the mind on Tuesday to make room for all of Erling Haaland's records.

The 6ft 5 striker is difficult to ignore at the best of times, but when he is in the clinical mood that he was against RB Leipzig it becomes inevitable that all the focus will be on him. Scoring five goals in 60 minutes generally has that effect.

Haaland's performance came as part of a stellar team display though, with Bernardo Silva, Ilkay Gundogan, Jack Grealish and Kevin De Bruyne all ensuring the attack had far too much for their opponents, overrunning RB Leipzig to make the second leg so much easier than the first. Rodri was of course central to cementing the links between defence and attack.

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A word is needed for the defence too. They may not have had to do too much but the team did not appear to have lost much creativity through playing four centre-backs in the starting XI yet gained a huge amount of stability. Just as at Crystal Palace, there was barely anything for Ederson to do.

Having looked unusually shaky in the months after the World Cup and conceding more goals than they are used to, City have sharpened up. The consistency of Nathan Ake and Manuel Akanji has been bolstered by the return from injury first of Ruben Dias and then John Stones.

The defence have now kept clean sheets in four consecutive games, something they had not done at any other point in the season previously. Statistically speaking, this is the best shape the defence has been in all year.

And that matters. Obviously, Haaland and his team of attackers will be relied upon to score the goals to win the games but everything has to be built