Manchester City’s director of football was outlining the reasons for the flagship signing of their summer. “Erling has everything we want in a striker,” Txiki Begiristain said. A 90 percent pass completion rate? An ability to make decoy runs to drag defenders out of position? A capacity to be outside the box when others scored for City? Or a willingness to sit on the bench?
Or none of those, because less facetiously and more prosaically, Begiristain had referenced Haaland’s “exceptional” goalscoring record: 86 in 89 appearances for Borussia Dortmund, better than a goal a game in the Champions League in the last three seasons.
