It didn’t take Erling Haaland long to score in Manchester City’s first match in over a month, a 2-0 friendly win over La Liga side Girona, leaving rival fans quacking in their boots ahead of the return of the Prem
Remember Erling Haaland? He’s that blonde bogeyman everyone was terrified of a few weeks ago … well turns out he’s still pretty terrifying.
It took the Norwegian monster, who has presumably spent the last month stewing in a cave somewhere staring demonically at a pair of football boots, just over a quarter-of-an-hour to grab a goal in Manchester City’s friendly win over Girona today.
In classic, intimidatingly-simple Haaland fashion, he tapped home from close-range after latching on to a cut-back from Kevin De Bruyne to notch his 24th goal since making his City debut in August.
On social media, the jubilation among City fans was as conspicuous as the groans of envious dread from rivals, with a depressed Arsenal fan tweeting: “Here we go again. I miss the World Cup already.”
“Back to being traumatized my Haaland on a weekly basis I see,” commented another rival supporter, while a third wrote: “Oh God not this again haha.”
City fans meanwhile were loving what they saw, with one tweeting: “He’s baaack. Mr Inevitable,” and another writing: “I’ve missed him so badly.”
De Bruyne had given City the lead a few minutes earlier and Haaland’s strike effectively put the game to be, despite two-thirds it still being left to play.
Having missed out on the World Cup, Haaland will be as keen as anyone for the Premier League to resume, and after scoring 18 goals in his first 13 league matches, who could blame him?
City are five points behind league-leaders Arsenal, but if Haaland picks up from where he left off last month there’s a good chance the gap won’t remain that large for long. First up, an EFL Cup clash with Liverpool on December 22, and then a trip to Leeds on December 28.