You can hardly call two goals and an assist in the opening two games a disappointment of any description.
Erling Haaland has certainly hit the ground running at Manchester City, but it's clear that things aren't clicking completely into place just yet. We've already seen glimpses of how devastating the striker will be for hapless Premier League defences. There can't be a much more terrifying sight for a centre-back than a 6ft3" mountain of a man barrelling towards you at a pace he shouldn't be able to reach, especially when you know he also has all the skills required to stick the ball in the back of the net once he gets to it.
Against West Ham, he was twice played through with brilliant passes, from Ilkay Gundogan and then Kevin De Bruyne, respectively. With the first, he was brought down in the box before dispatching the penalty, and with the second he calmly slotted it into the corner. A finish which is quickly becoming a trademark.
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But at City, Haaland will be required to do more than just score. He will have to help press and be involved in the patient build-up, even if he'd rather just have the ball immediately played in behind for him to chase. The Norwegian has already shown he will easily be capable of doing that, though. With one of his two passes against Bournemouth, he played an excellent one-two, which also required considerable strength to hold off a defender, with Gundogan to go through and score.
It will take the worst possible bad luck for Haaland not to become a phenom for City, but he isn't there quite yet. He is still working to get acclimatised to such a unique way of playing, as are his teammates. City have basically been playing without a natural striker for the last two seasons due to Sergio Aguero's injury-laden last year, before he then departed and wasn't replaced.
Instead, they have been largely using false nines, with one of De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva, Phil Foden or Raheem Sterling being deployed through the middle and, naturally, those players often came deep for the ball or drifted to the channels. It worked brilliantly, up until those crucial moments when a goal was desperately needed and it couldn't be found.
That's why Haaland has been signed. To be the difference-maker in the chaotic, gilt-edged Champions League ties. To be the man you can near-guarantee to score when he's clean through on goal. But going back to playing with a proper focal point, a real spearhead, is going to take some time to get used to.
Haaland's exasperation was clear for all to see when, eight minutes in against Bournemouth, he had an easy chance to score if Foden just passed him the ball. Instead, he shot and it was saved, leaving Haaland in utter disbelief.
It wasn't the end of the world, as Foden went on to score from a pretty much identical position later on but against better teams, those sorts of opportunities may not present themselves quite as often. That's when Foden not making the pass could prove very costly.
Foden, and the rest of the players, will need to acclimatise to the fact that they now have a lethal finisher who will always be lurking in the box on hand to dispatch their passes. It may take a bit of time, but Pep Guardiola is under no doubt that they will get there.
"We are delighted with Erling," Guardiola said. "The little details still we miss but not just with him, with everything. It's just a question of time. I don't have any doubts, it's just a question of time like all the new players. The connections, the chemistry on the pitch, the right moments, the right tempo with the players. This is a question of games, games and games."
When those details are eventually ironed out, it will spell bad news for any team that stands in City's way.
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