Erling Haaland scored five goals to power Manchester City into the quarter-finals of the Champions League with a 7-0 win over RB Leipzig at the Etihad Stadium.
The tie had been precariously balanced after a 1-1 draw in Germany but Haaland took the game away from City’s opponents with a first-half hat-trick and added two more before the hour on an astonishing night. His tally for the season now stands at 39.
Ilkay Gundogan and Kevin De Bruyne grabbed the other goals but the evening belonged to the 22-year-old Norwegian. He is the first man in nine years to score five in a Champions League game and it might have been more had Pep Guardiola not withdrawn him.
BET H
The City boss knows there are bigger tests ahead and though Arsenal retain a five-point lead in the Premier League title race, with Guardiola’s team now in two quarter-finals – and Haaland in this mood – a spectacular finale to the season could yet lie ahead.