14 hours ago
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Manchester City beat Bournemouth 3-1 at the Etihad in the Premier League with two goals from Erling Haaland and another from Nico O'Reilly
Erling Haaland had a big say in Manchester City's win over Bournemouth. The Norwegian netted twice to stretch his lead to seven in the race for the Golden Boot and reduce Arsenal's lead to six at the top of the Premier League.
It may seem inevitable for a raw milk-swigging colossus of a striker who has ripped up goalscoring records for fun since he arrived at the Etihad, but it is remarkable how so much continues to be about Haaland.
Pep Guardiola's side won the Treble just months after one of the leading pundits claimed that the striker had joined the wrong team, and after years of commentators trying to suggest Haaland has made City less effective this season the claims are that they are now playing too much to his strengths.
He is now so good that Haaland is seen as the only source of City goals. If opponents can stop him, they can stop the team - that's the argument.
Nobody wants to be a one-man team, but at the same time nobody is scoring goals at the rate of Haaland. Clinical strikes from the No.9 ended up giving City the lead not once but twice against Bournemouth, with a Gianluigi Donnarumma howler allowing Tyler Adams to equalise for the visitors in the first half.
And if City were reliant on the same scorer, they found a new source in Rayan Cherki. Fresh from a man-of-the-match performance in the League Cup at Swansea, the France international kept his place in the team and came up with two smart assists to influence the game; if any team wants to stop Haaland, they will now have to stop Cherki as well.
City played some excellent football in the first half, with the crowd increasingly irate at referee Anthony Taylor's decisions, and should have been more than one goal to the good in the first half.
Bournemouth had looked best when attacking and they forced Donnarumma into a couple of saves in the second period that risked undoing City's work. With the game in the balance, step forward full-back Nico O'Reilly who powered home from inside the box to make the game safe.
City do have other goalscorers then, but even without O'Reilly's effort their tactics of feeding Haaland has sent them to second in the Premier League after 10 games. Given how badly they started, they will rightly be delighted - especially because the expectation is that they will get better as the team gels more.
The narrative is already set that City's season will be determined in a large way by what they do with Haaland. Given he continues to score goals at an obscene rate, he and his teammates will not mind that at all.
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