Man City have a goalscoring trend other clubs would love as five-hour run continues

Manchester City overcome a difficult first half to beat Everton 2-0 at the Etihad as Erling Haaland continued his incredible record in front of goal.

It is now just over five hours since anyone not called Erling Haaland scored for Manchester City. So it's a good job someone who is called Erling Haaland is scoring goals at a rate that would give Dixie Dean a run for his money.

Dean is the former Everton striker whose top-flight record for a season in English football is unlikely to ever be beaten, having scored 60 goals in 39 games in 1927/28.

That is nearly a century ago and the game has changed considerably, but you can imagine the Goodison Park crowds of the 1920s got just as big a thrill out of watching Dean put the ball in the back of the net as the Etihad faithful are of seeing Haaland do the same in the 2020s.

The numbers this season are frightening and at his current rate, the Norwegian would end up with 53 goals this season. Maybe City don't actually need anyone else to score for them.

Only Haaland has done so since Matheus Nunes scored against Burnley and that has still been enough to beat Brentford and Everton and draw Monaco.

The problem in the first half was that the chances were falling to Savinho and Jeremy Doku rather than Haaland. They shared out the three shots on target City managed in the opening 45 minutes and should have done better with them.

Savinho had the first big chance, played in behind by Nunes, but his finish lacked conviction and even Jordan Pickford looked surprised at how simple a save he had to make.

Late in the half, it was Doku's turn. Finally finding space to exploit, City broke forward, and Haaland combined with Tijjani Reijnders, who teed up Doku. Again, it was routine for Pickford.

Reijnders himself had a presentable first-half chance, but his shot from eight yards out was deflected wide. He has now had a shot in all 13 of his starts for club and country this season and has had 25 in total for the Blues, for a return of just one goal.

It sums up City's issue, if you can call it that when you are the Premier League's top goalscorers, that their second highest scorer in the league is Burnley defender Maxime Esteve, who put through his own net twice at the Etihad last month.

But maybe that isn't a problem when Haaland is playing like he is. He didn't have a sniff of goal for 58 minutes in this game, but then scored twice in five minutes to kill it off. He has now scored in 11 consecutive games for club and country, has 23 goals in 13 games and is back to breaking Premier League records for fun.

This is only the third time a player has scored 10 goals in the first eight games of the season. The previous two occasions? Haaland.

Everton would have been happy with their afternoon's work just before his first. They had cut off service, looked like a threat themselves and rarely looked like conceding.

Then, Nico O'Reilly stood up the kind of cross that Haaland is devouring this season, before his rapid first-time shot caught Pickford by surprise for his second.

That effectively ended the contest and the only surprise was Haaland's failure to secure his hat-trick. Three times he got in behind the Everton defence in injury time, twice he was denied by Pickford and on the other occasion he ran wide and couldn't get his shot back on target.

But that is a minor quibble, even if the man himself looked annoyed. At this rate, Haaland is going to take some stopping. Good luck to the defenders of Villarreal.