Three talking points from the Premier League's opening weekend

Manchester City took an early lead in the expected fight for the Premier League title with Liverpool after the first weekend of the season as Erling Haaland's debut double gave the champions a 2-0 win at West Ham.

Liverpool were held 2-2 by newly-promoted Fulham a day earlier, but could also take comfort in the impact of their new striker Darwin Nunez, who came off the bench to rescue his side a point.

Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham were all victorious in the early running for the top four, but Manchester United started as they ended last season in a dispiriting 2-1 home defeat to Brighton in Erik ten Hag's first match in charge.

AFP Sport looks at three talking points from the opening games of the Premier League season.

Haaland worth the hype

Manchester City took their time after missing out on Harry Kane as the successor to Sergio Aguero last summer and were rewarded by beating off the competition around Europe to sign Haaland from Borussia Dortmund for a bargain 51 million ($63 million).

Adding one of the world's most feared strikers to a side that have won back-to-back titles without a natural goalscorer proved as fearsome a prospect as it promised on the opening weekend.

At a ground where City nearly threw the title away in the penultimate game of last season, West Ham barely got a kick for the first-half.

Haaland's arrival is designed to eradicate the days when City fail to make their dominance show on the scoreboard and he delivered straight away as his acceleration lured Alphonse Areola into committing a penalty for the opening goal.

Scoring spot-kicks is another problem the Norwegian wonderkid could solve for his new club as he slotted away the penalty and showed his pace again to race onto Kevin De Bruyne's pass to kill