Manchester City's Erling Haaland in action with Sevilla's Jose Angel Carmona
Erling Haaland continued his free-scoring start to life at Manchester City with two more goals in an impressive 4-0 win over Sevilla in Champions League Group G on Tuesday.
The Norwegian has now scored 12 goals in seven competitive games for City since joining the club from Borussia Dortmund during the close-season.
The goals also made the 22-year-old the fastest player to score 25 goals in the Champions League -- a milestone he has reached in just 20 matches.
The blond striker put City ahead in the 20th minute, stretching to reach a cross from Kevin De Bruyne and place it past Sevilla keeper Yassine Bounou.
Couldn’t have imagined a better start to the #UCL season 22/23 for us - Great job team 💪![CDATA[]]>🏼![CDATA[]]>💙 @ManCity pic.twitter.com/gcLZtVhVbr
— Ilkay Gündogan (@IlkayGuendogan) September 6, 2022
De Bruyne then found himself one-on-one with Bounou, after breaking clear, but this time the Moroccan goalkeeper pulled off a fine save to deny the Belgian.
Sevilla have managed just one draw from their opening four games in LaLiga and they struggled to cope with City's swift movement in a one-sided game.
Phil Foden made it 2-0 after the break, jinking and turning to create space on the edge of the box before placing the ball into the bottom corner.
Ilkay Gundogan had an effort disallowed after turning in a header from Foden, who was in an offside position but Pep Guardiola's side soon had the margin of victory their dominance deserved.
The #UCL is back and I love it! 🔵 #mancity pic.twitter.com/WDXvVHBfIl
— Erling Haaland (@ErlingHaaland) September 6, 2022
Haaland showed his goalscoring instinct to make sure of a comfortable victory, pouncing to tap-in after Bounou had pushed out a low drive from the impressive Foden.
Even with victory assured, City continued to push forward and defender Ruben Dias added the fourth in stoppage time, turning in a low cross from Joao Cancelo.
The understanding between De Bruyne, City's main creative force from midfield, and Haaland already looks strong and is proving fruitful.
PEP 💬 [On Akanji] He trained one day and a half with us but he showed what experience he has at Dortmund and what a good central defender Manchester City brought to us. He has quality similar like Aymeric - he can break the lines with the pass. He reads really well the spaces. pic.twitter.com/IcRCWWxGjS
— Manchester City (@ManCity) September 6, 2022
"I try to do my job and make the right movements and create the most chances I can. I know one way or another Erling will be there. At the moment he's scoring the goals," said De Bruyne.
"For him it's a perfect start. I think the way he has adapted to us is really good but obviously, outside of the goal scoring there's another part of the game and that is more tough to adapt to. It makes it exciting if he can adapt to see the outcome."
City have now scored 24 goals in seven matches in the Premier League and Europe and Guardiola hopes that they and Haaland can continue against Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday.
"I think his numbers in all his career, even in previous teams, is quite similar. He has an incredible sense of goal. We have incredible numbers in terms of goals and we need to continue like that. Another battle against Tottenham and hopefully we can continue," the Spanish coach said.
Reuters
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