Erling Haaland has scored home and away for Manchester City this season yet a goal at a neutral venue eludes him.
His first game for the club came at the King Power Stadium in the Community Shield against Liverpool, where he produced one of the misses of the season to send his doubters into a frenzy. Within weeks, he had made those forecasters look utterly stupid as he scored at an unprecedented rate to set himself up to win the Premier League Golden Boot.
Haaland did get a game at Wembley too, perhaps surprisingly, in the FA Cup semi-final against Sheffield United days after a gruelling match in Munich in the Champions League. He had the ball in the net on that occasion but it was ruled out for a foul in the build-up.
Read next: Guardiola has what he wanted after title win despite City grumbles
That of course means that he is still waiting for his goal at a neutral venue, although his form after the Community Shield would suggest that he doesn't tend to stay quiet for long. It would be a surprise if Haaland ended his debut campaign in English football without a goal in either Wembley or Istanbul - or both.
Haaland, of course, could quite easily have been a United player. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer told United to sign the striker for just £4m when he was at Molde, and then when he was in the dugout at Old Trafford the teenager was available for £17m but moved to Dortmund instead.
United tried to claim that the Dortmund deal was bad for football because of the power it put in the hands of his representatives, yet the Norwegian has since shown that a generational talent is worth making compromises for. There had been so little progress by United by the time Haaland was set on leaving Dortmund that they weren't even among the clubs he considered before choosing City.
A Haaland goal on Saturday would go some way to showing again why City signed him as they try to pull off the Treble given the team have never lost when he has scored, setting him and them up for the Champions League final in Istanbul. It would also provide more evidence of why Erik Ten Hag is daft to talk of a lack of spending at United.
The Reds boss suggested on Sunday that all of their rivals had strengthened in January where they hadn't, so he either considers City to be so far ahead of United that they cannot be considered rivals or he conveniently forgot that the only business the Blues did was letting Joao Cancelo join Bayern on loan.
United have not struggled to challenge for the title because they haven't spent, but because for many years they have splurged on the wrong players and not bought the ones they should. Haaland could hammer that point home this weekend.
READ NEXT:
