Haaland the difference as Man City break down Everton

The Norwegian struck for a brace at home to the Toffees. 

ON THE DOUBLE: Manchester City's Erling Haaland celebrates scoring the opening goal. Pic: Martin Rickett/PA Wire.

MAN CITY 2 EVERTON 0 

PEP GUARDIOLA will hate it, but Manchester City are rapidly becoming the Erling Haaland team.

There's certainly a compelling case to be made this season that if Haaland doesn't do the business for City then no-one else will.

The Norwegian, fresh from helping his country qualify for the World Cup, continued his remarkable form with a devastating double that took his goal-tally for the campaign to 14, with 10 of them coming in the Premier League.

In 13 appearances for club and country, he has found the net 23 times. He's scored in each of his last 11 games.

His only blank this season came in the 2-0 home defeat at the hands of Tottenham in August.

Which is ironic because a few years ago Guardiola once apologised to the London club for suggesting they were nothing without Harry Kane. Now it's City who appear to be a one-man team.

Until Haaland broke Everton's resistance in the 58th minute, with a textbook centre-forward's header from Nico O'Reilly's delicious left-wing cross, it was turning into a frustrating afternoon at the Etihad for those of a Sky Blue persuasion.

His second goal five minutes later came courtesy of a shot that took a slight deflection off James Tarkowski's heel to leave Jordan Pickford floundering and expose the Toffees' keeper to ironic chants from home fans about his position as England's No 1.

David Moyes travelled across the East Lancs Road with a plan to frustrate City - and for long periods it worked.

Everton defended in numbers and, on the occasions they were able to get on the front foot, they used the muscular presence of Beto and the creativity of Iliman Ndiaye to great effect.

There were chances for both players when City looked vulnerable with the game still goalless.

But once Haaland had impacted the contest in typical fashion there was never any doubt that Guardiola's 350th game as City manager would bring his 251st victory.

The win lifted City into the top four, but their No 9 would have still left the pitch angry that he failed to take one of three injury-time chances to secure another match-ball.

Man City (4-2-3-1): Donnarumma 6; Nunes 6, Dias 6, Ake 6 O'Reilly. 7 (Lewis 85); Nico 6 (Kovacic 85), Reijnders 6 (Bernardo 59, 5); Savinho 5 (Cherki 85), Foden 6, Doku 5 (Bobb 59, 5); Haaland.

Everton (4-2-3-1): Pickford 5; O'Brien 6, Keane 6, Tarkowski 5, Mykolenko 5; Gueye 5 (Iroegbunam 70, 5), Garner. 6; Ndiaye 7 (Dibling 85, 5), Dewsbury-Hall 6 (McNeil 87), Alcaraz 5 (Röhl 70, 5); Beto 7 (Barry 75, 5).

Booked: Garner.

Referee: Tony Harrington (Cleveland).