Relentless Erling Haaland sparks Manchester City’s Copenhagen rout

As the ball hit the net and Erling Haaland wheeled away yet again, Pep Guardiola simply laughed out loud. The stadium announcer declared: “Goal for City, who else?” Supporters were shaking their heads in disbelief. That’s the thing about what Erling Haaland is doing. He manages to make even a routine night’s work for Manchester City like this interesting, and leave you wondering how you’re going to react.

The bad news for supporters of Southampton, City’s next opponents, is that Haaland was given the second half off here to freshen him for the games ahead. By the time he had been withdrawn at half-time though, Guardiola’s side had already done more than enough to see off a helpless FC Copenhagen and take another step towards the Champions League knockout stages with time to spare. They led 3-0 at the break and added another two thereafter to ultimately run out comfortable winners.

Haaland scored two more here to add to his seemingly never-ending tally. The first was with his first touch of the match to take his total for City this season to 19 in 12 matches. He has 28 Champions League goals already, too. But City, even sans Haaland in the second half, were impressive everywhere you looked. That’s the thing about this side though: they are impressive in almost every aspect – they just have a player who has a habit of plucking the headlines.

Guardiola made five changes from the derby victory over Manchester United. The injured Kyle Walker dropped out, meaning a switch to right-back for João Cancelo, with Rúben Dias, Aymeric Laporte and Sergio Gómez making up an almost entirely new-look back four. Kevin De Bruyne and Phil Foden were rested after their derby displays, with Riyad Mahrez and Julián Álvarez given a chance to