If any Premier League player should be allowed to let his hair down, it is Erling Haaland.
And it was one of the defining images of this defining night, the Norwegian’s golden mane trailing like flames from an engine as he joyously rampaged around a crackling Etihad, taking the acclaim as though he was some sort of Norse god.
The barnet had put the boys from North London to the sword. But not in his customary way, not in his clinical, one-touch finish way.
