Telling Man City reactions to Erling Haaland speak volumes in Premier League rout

Manchester City are top of the league.

It's a sentence people are used to hearing, but this is the first time in nearly five months that the champions will spend a day on top of the Premier League table. By the end of Sunday, they may be back down to third again.

But you never know, and that is the point. Nobody will have strong memories of a one-sided win over Luton town yet City are doing all that can be expected of them in the title race and putting pressure on the teams above them to follow suit.

Liverpool wilted last week, taking the lead against an inferior side and battering them on the shot count but failing to make their dominance pay and dropping points. That will have been the half-time warning for City after an opening 45 minutes where the shot count was 19-0 but only one goal separated the teams.

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It hadn't been a vintage performance, summed up by the second successive City goal inside the opening two minutes. Whereas Bernardo Silva's strike in Madrid owed much to creativity and quick-thinking, Erling Haaland managed to miss a one-on-one with Thomas Kaminski and then when it came back to him his acrobatic volley was flying well wide before it took a big deflection off Daiki Hashioka and flew into the net.

That could have opened the floodgates, and Luton were suitably worried. Manager Rob Edwards called his defenders over, Hashioka received some attention on the pitch while a Luton analyst swore in frustration in the first half as City dominated.

It almost felt like City were trying too hard for a goal though. Players were getting in each other's way trying to score, Haaland wasn't getting into the positions of last season and Julian Alvarez did his chances of making the XI for the Real game no help at all with a string of poor decisions.

Matheus Nunes, one of six changes from the side that started in the Bernabeu as Rodri got the rest he needed with Phil Foden, Bernardo and Jack Grealish also on the bench, did his usual routine of making the hard things look easy and the easy things look hard. He ghosted into the box at the beginning of the second half to get onto the end of a ball over the top, only to lose his footing and fall over when he should have been putting the ball past Kaminski.

Six changes has to be included in the conversation, because there's a good chance City would have been more clinical and better in general play if more of their better players had been on the pitch. However, it was another performance that suggested the Blues are not at the stratospheric levels they reached last season.

The biggest entertainment in the second half came from the crowd, who brought the noise to the Etihad despite the lack of anything on the pitch to cheer about. United in song during the game, before kick-off the 1894 group had unleashed a banner in solidarity with MCFC Fans Foodbank Support group to raise awareness of the hardship experienced by too many in Manchester at a time when the cost of living - and supporting City - is only making it more difficult.

As the game ticked past the hour mark, shot number 26 was thundered into the net by Mateo Kovacic to give the hosts some breathing space. Breaths in the City dugout were held minutes later when Fred Onyedinma robbed Josko Gvardiol in his own third only to see substitute Cauley Woodrow's effort hit the bar and bounce clear.

Pleasingly for Guardiola, it was Jeremy Doku who grabbed the game with quick feet to earn a penalty and quicker feet to score City's fourth, either side of some average play from Nunes that allowed Ross Barkley to score a consolation. Having not scored for them since his summer move before this week, Gvardiol now has two after another rasping effort with his right foot in injury time.

As positive as Doku was, the reactions to Haaland scoring the penalty were telling. His teammates flocked to him, he punched the air, and Guardiola gave him a big hug when he came off - for all the criticism levelled at him again recently, everyone at the Etihad values the big No.9 for a reason.

When it gets to this time of the season, a win is a win. As Rico Lewis said after the game at Palace last week, dropping points can be fatal and any win is massive.

As we all wait for the 10-0 thrashing every week that tells us City have got better, there is a danger that their extraordinary form is normalised. This was their 17th league game without defeat and their 27th in all competitions, a run going back to early December that has seen them win the Club World Cup and stay in contention to repeat a Treble that had only been done once in English football before they did it last year.

A home game with Luton is enough to stir painful memories for a fair amount of supporters who remember the Maine Road relegation, yet the 2-0 win here was City's 41st match unbeaten at the Etihad in all competitions. Carry that on against Real Madrid on Wednesday and not only will they have made a fourth successive Champions League semi-final but they will equal a club record for unbeaten home games set between 1919 and 1921 when they were at Hyde Road.

Only time will tell what silverware will come, but for now City can celebrate a night on top of the league for the first time since November. The champions will not be giving up any of their crowns without a fight.