Man City

It is not hard to imagine Pep Guardiola and his players being less than thrilled with their destination on the opening weekend of the 2022/23 Premier League ...

— — — — — — — — 2 hours to KO: Hello and welcome to The Sporting News' live coverage of West Ham vs. Before that, West Ham sat deep, soaked up pressure and numerous crosses and were ruthless on the break with two Jarrod Bowen goals. Interestingly, Bernardo Silva, who has been linked with a move to Barcelona, is on the bench, while Nathan Ake partners Ruben Dias in defence. 2nd minute: West Ham pile forward early on, with Antonio the focal point as expected.

City were at something close to our dominant best on Sunday afternoon, with two Erling Haaland goals seeing off West Ham United at the London Stadium.

Ake, Rodrigo, Dias and Walker took second to fifth respectively in that metric, showing that City spent a lot of time manoeuvring West Ham around the pitch before feeding into the attacking players. And City were equally as impressive in that regard. The beefed up midfield allowed City to dominate possession, making 833 passes and completing 774 of them. We won 39 of the 68 duels (57%) according to FotMob, beating the Hammers to the ball on the floor 28 times and in the air on 11 occasions. Haaland wasted no time letting Premier League defenders know exactly what to expect from him. That sees the Blues off to the perfect start in the Premier League as we seek to defend the title we have won in four of the last five seasons.

Erling Haaland marked his first Premier League game with both goals as Man City opened the campaign with an ominously dominant win at West Ham.

They travel to newly promoted Nottingham Forest in the Premier League (Aug. 14) before facing the first leg of their UEFA Europa Conference League playoff opponent at home (Aug. 18) and then hosting Brighton (Aug. 21) in the Premier League. (Their Europa opponent? With two years left to run on his contract, West Ham may have to offload Rice next summer if he fails to agree a new deal, but if a big offer comes in before the Aug. 31 transfer deadline, it could be tempting for both West Ham and Rice to make the move happen. But although he remains a West Ham player, there is still time for a bigger, wealthier club to make a move for the England international this month, and there are two in particular -- Chelsea and Manchester United -- who have been long-term admirers of Rice and who both still need midfield reinforcements. But the former Paris Saint-Germain keeper, who replaced the injured Lukasz Fabianski on 29 minutes, gifted City the opening goal just seven minutes after going on when he raced off his line and fouled Haaland with a reckless dive that resulted in a penalty. In terms of dominating the game, there were times when City had more than 75% of possession, and this was against a West Ham team that almost clinched a top-six finish last season. If their slick performance against West Ham is a gauge of what is to come, however, the chasing pack will have to sprint just to keep up. Also, it's been almost 30 minutes since I scored the last goal, so I have to keep going." But Haaland scored both goals as City made a winning start to the defence of their title and their star signing showed that he will be a huge asset to Pep Guardiola's team. There was certainly no rust in the win at the London Stadium. Erling Haaland's two goals got the new signing off the mark, and he has added greater potency to a team that already scored plenty. Meanwhile, his second was a classic striker's goal, one that underlined his pace, movement and nerveless ability to beat a keeper in a one-on-one situation. It's fair to say he is already living up to the job description. His first was from the penalty spot after his clever run behind the Hammers' defence was picked out by Ilkay Gundogan. After showing impressive pace to beat Hammers substitute goalkeeper Alphonse Areola to the ball and earn the penalty, Haaland sent him the wrong way from the spot with a precise penalty that nestled in the corner of the net.

The goal-scoring cheat-code has arrived in the Premier League and we better get used to his trademark celebration. Manchester City's Erling Haaland, ...

After finding the net, Haaland crossed his legs in a trademark meditation celebration in front of the opposition fans. In an interview with Esporte Interativo, Haaland gave an insight into why he chooses to celebrate in this fashion. A celebration just like his presence in front of goal: calmness personified. Perhaps most famously, Neymar mocked Haaland’s pose during Borussia Dortmund’s UEFA Champions League clash with Paris Saint-German in 2020. This is why I sometimes celebrate like that when I score.” On Sunday, English football was reminded of Haaland’s goal-scoring pedigree.