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Manchester Evening News
Manchester Evening News
Sport
Simon Bajkowski

Erling Haaland repeated Lionel Messi feat to start Man City party vs RB Leipzig

"He's Erling Haaland and he'll take the **** again, ahhhhh wooooooooooooooooo."

Manchester City fans may want to rework the lyrics to one of their popular songs at the minute to include their Nordic meat shield after he made a mockery of a difficult Champions League tie to send City roaring into the quarter-finals. Goals number 35, 36, 37, 38, and 39 for the season all arrived in a one-sided second leg to reinforce his status as one of the greatest talents in world football obliterating record after record.

It is worth pausing for a moment on this 22-year-old, who surpassed Kylian Mbappe to become the youngest player to score 30 Champions League goals - and also did it in the quickest time, just 25 appearances. This was his fifth hat-trick of the season and with his fifth (fifth!) goal of the night he smashed Tommy Johnson's record from the 1928-29 season to take the all-time record for City goals in a single campaign.

Also read: City player ratings as Haaland ridiculous

While there have been legitimate questions over how Haaland has adapted into his new team, his goal record has never been in question and, if it felt laughable last month for Jamie Carragher to suggest the Norwegian was at the wrong club, it is a comment that everyone at City is rolling on the floor over. His second goal showed just how much City have rubbed off on him.

As RB Leipzig kicked off looking to get back into the game after feeling hard done to by a penalty - interestingly enough, the soft penalty given for handball was against Benjamin Henrichs, who seemed to use his arms without being punished in the final moments of the first leg - they played the ball back to goalkeeper Janis Blaswich only to find Haaland closing him down rather quickly. The rushed clearance was pumped back up to Haaland, who headed it back for Kevin De Bruyne to unleash a fierce shot against the underside of the crossbar; as it bounced, the No.9 stooped to head in.

Not just a goalscoring machine then, but a pressing machine perfectly capable of fitting into this City team that has him precisely for these kind of evenings when he can be the difference between a tight contest and a rout. It was a move similar to the blaring chance he missed at Nottingham Forest, showing once again that Haaland misses only serve to emphasise how many he scores.

City being City, the tie was still not over at 2-0. Ederson came haring out of his goal recklessly and was incredibly fortunate not only to avoid punishment for smashing straight through the RB Leipzig forward but even somehow getting a free-kick of his own out of it. When Rodri gave the ball away in the box, there were shades of the fog that engulfed the side in both games against Tottenham.

That was over by the interval though as Haaland bundled the ball over the line after Ruben Dias had hit a post from a corner, effectively ending the game on the night and the whole contest. City were in the quarter-finals with 45 minutes to spare.

Goals four and five on the night came for Haaland still before he was taken off with 35 minutes to play, seeing him overtake Mo Salah at the top of the Champions League scoring charts for the season and become just the third player in the history of the competition to score five goals in a single game. Guardiola had already seen such a feat happen of course, with a forward called Lionel Messi doing it in March 2012.

Much of the pre-match build-up talked of the impressive reputation of the centre-back Josko Gvardiol, who has starred so consistently in the Bundesliga and at the World Cup that he will command a lofty eight-figure price for any top club that wants to buy him in summer. Fittingly, he has not had as torrid a game since Qatar when Messi tore him to shreds.

He loved it and the fans loved it, Poznaning their way to the final whistle as they kept up the noise. Guardiola and the players had asked them to be up for this night, and they certainly were.

Can Haaland be the City version of Messi to enable Guardiola to finally be satisfied that his legacy will be looked on fondly by all? That remains several rounds and many dramas away, but the Blues will again fear nobody in the quarter-finals.

There should also be a word for De Bruyne. Plenty of the talk before this game had centred on him not being as good this year as in previous seasons, the 31-year-old struggling to hit previous highs.

That now looks pretty daft as well after a virtuoso performance from the Belgian that was crowned with a slapped finish into the top corner in the final minute of the game that made it 7-0, equalling City's record win in the competition. A night that began with such suspense ended with celebrations instead.

The bigger picture continues to look promising. That is now nine games unbeaten for City, with seven wins and two draws.

They can do nothing about Arsenal, who play again before the international break in the Premier League for the chance to extend their lead, but have shown that they have the quality to stick around in that race until the end. Victory over Burnley on Saturday will put them into the FA Cup semi-finals, setting them up in three competitions.

With the team in this form and with Haaland as prolific as ever, there should be many more celebrations here and on the road in the months to come.

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