Erling Haaland scored his fourth hattrick of the season as Manchester City thrashed a helpless Wolverhampton Wanderers 3-0 at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday evening.

The Norwegian striker now has 25 goals in 19 Premier League appearances, already surpassing the tally of the highest goal scorer from last season.  

Dominating performance

Pep Guardiola’s men dominated from start to finish to give themselves three points and close the gap to league leaders Arsenal by just two points before the latter host Manchester United later in the day.

Haaland opened the scoring in the 40th minute with a thumping header from Kevin De Bruyne’s inch perfect pass from the right flank to open the scoring. Wolves keeper Jose Sa had earlier made two good saves to keep out the hosts but as soon as Haaland scored, Wolves looked rattled and hardly recovered.

Ruben Neves brought down Ilkay Gundogan 4 minutes after the restart and Haaland stepped up to send Sa the wrong way to make it 2-0 for City.

Four minutes late Sa gave away the ball needlessly straight to Riyad Mahrez who could have scored himself but instead stroked it to Haaland and the latter passed into the bottom corner to make it three on the night.

Replaced with a World Cup winner

Haaland was substituted at the hour mark by World Cup winner Julian Alvarez who could have got into the scoresheet himself but Sa denied him a one on one after being fed from De Bruyne’s inch perfect layoff. Gundogan should have made it 4-0 in the 80th minute but the German midfielder missed a free header at the near post.

City held on to their clean sheet despite some late Wolves pressure who looked rusty with manager Julen Lopetegui cutting a frustrating figure on the sidelines. The Spanish manager will have his work cut out as his side as they sit 17th flirting with the relegation zone.

For Guardiola, its his side’s sixth straight victory over Wolves having scored 19 times over that course and the reigning Champions will travel to Tottenham next weekend as they look to have a hattrick of Premier League wins.

Photo credit: IMAGO Andrew Yates / Sportimage