Erling Haaland continued the blistering start to his Manchester City career by scoring a perfect hat trick inside 38 minutes as the Premier League champions smashed promoted Nottingham Forest 6-0 on Wednesday.
Haaland has scored nine goals in five league games since joining City from Borussia Dortmund and has back-to-back hat tricks after netting three in Saturday’s win over Crystal Palace.
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“Amazing, nothing more to say,” said the Norway international. “It was about keeping doing what we did in the second half against Palace, play, play, play — it was nice. It’s been good so far, I’m not complaining.”
With City’s other new forward, Argentine Julian Alvarez, scoring twice after the break, the win was a clear warning to title rivals of the extra attacking threat Pep Guardiola’s side now possess.
The Spaniard said Haaland was simply repeating the form he had shown throughout his prolific career.
“What he has done in Norway, Austria, Germany he has started to do here. He is talented, we knew it and today we saw Julian as well. We have two incredible strikers with an incredible sense to score goals,” Guardiola said.
The 22-year-old put City ahead in the 12th minute, latching on to a cross from Phil Foden to hook it past Forest keeper Dean Henderson.
Henderson’s poor clearance then led to City’s second when Bernardo Silva collected the ball and launched a counter with a swift exchange of passes and Foden again provided the assist to Haaland who slotted home from close range.
Haaland completed his treble, leaping to power in a far-post header after defender John Stones had nodded a corner back across the face of goal.
Forest were unable to contain an excellent City who made it 4-0 shortly after the break with a fine Joao Cancelo drive from the edge of the box.
Alvarez added two more for City, both powerful strikes, as Pep Guardiola’s side made it four wins out of five games with 19 goals scored.
The Argentine’s first Premier League goal came after some clever play from Riyad Mahrez with Alvarez driving home from a tight angle.
Haaland was then substituted in the 69th minute although Forest could hardly be relieved to see Kevin De Bruyne replacing him.
The Belgium international created City’s sixth, charging up field after a Forest free kick struck the wall and then finding Mahrez, whose shot was blocked before Alvarez pounced and blasted home.