And ruthless City are already baring teeth

City go top as Haaland creates space and De Bruyne runs riot. Already it’s...

THIS newest incarnation of Manchester City is 10 really good footballers and the other bloke who does things around the box that will decide more important games than this one.

And it isn’t Erling Haaland. Instead, Kevin De Bruyne. Comfortably Europe’s best midfielder for a while now, City are creating an even better version — more goals than ever and, it seems, the major beneficiary of Haaland’s introduction into this astonishing team.

De Bruyne is increasingly playing up alongside the striker as manager Pep Guardiola finds fresh ways to make sure his protagonist is as close to goal as possible, evidenced when sauntering up to bend in the second. Guardiola was muttering to himself about there not being enough space for De Bruyne to execute the acute finish but then, De Bruyne is De Bruyne, a master of angles.

City are, within reason, letting him do what he wants, be it carrying possession from deep or whipping crosses from the right. He wanders off to the left, to Phil Foden’s delight when the youngster latched on to a through ball that nutmegged poor Chris Mepham and went in via two deflections as City scored their third eight minutes before half-time.

‘Kevin has started to… before it was just about assists, assists, assists,’ Guardiola said. ‘Now he’s enjoying winning games and scoring goals.’

By that point, this was all over. Bournemouth — heavily praised by Guardiola beforehand — decamped to their own box right from the off, conceded territory and hoped to remain compact enough to frustrate the champions, yet class told rather quickly. Ahead inside 19 minutes through Ilkay Gundogan, and with quite a few chances before then, City swatted away their newly promoted opposition.

Rather less emotional than his last goal in front of the Etihad Stadium’s South Stand on that dramatic May afternoon, Gundogan’s opener was a product of Haaland.

The Norwegian new signing hadn’t touched the ball until then, yet came to life when holding off two challenges, rolling two defenders to complete a one-two and assist for Gundogan who did the rest. He will be regularly occupied by at least two men.

That is what City are getting from Haaland. He will not be involved for long spells — and the striker not touching it for almost 20 minutes in this team, with this amount of domination, does feel bizarre — but when he is, they click. De Bruyne, meanwhile, barely wasted a pass, completing 98 per cent of his passes by the time they were off for a drinks break with about 20 minutes to go. Last season’s 19 strikes were the most impressive numbers of his career and those will only improve this time as a result of what Haaland brings.

‘Erling has the most difficult job in the world: a striker when a team defends like Bournemouth,’ said Guardiola. ‘Three central defenders, two players in front, and you’re in the middle. How can you survive that?’

Haaland bounced off a couple of markers on halfway in the build-up to De Bruyne’s goal, which saw Bournemouth back off and allow him to curl with the outside of his boot into the far corner on 31 minutes.

Foden’s fortunate third was also thanks to ingenuity from the fulcrum De Bruyne, who could end up with the captain’s armband when the squad take to the ballots over the coming weeks as they choose Fernandinho’s replacement.

Bournemouth manager Scott Parker said: ‘We’ve played against a world-class team. We needed 11 men with 10 out of 10 performances and ride our luck.’

However, Parker will be buoyed by how the Cherries managed to contain the Premier League champions a little more readily after the break. Haaland departed without scoring and with only eight touches all afternoon, while Jefferson Lerma put it in his own net following good work by Joao Cancelo 11 minutes from time.

There was a long, pointed chorus of Bernardo Silva’s name when the little Portuguese was introduced from the bench. Barcelona finding a few million quid down the back of the sofa might be the only thing that can ruin Guardiola’s August.