For 89 minutes, Erling Haaland had endured one of his quieter games. Crowded out by Burnley’s three centre-backs, he had an assist but his regular mantle as match-winner was being passed to an improbable combination of Matheus Nunes and Maxime Esteve. And by the time the final whistle was blown, Haaland had a brace to take his tally to 14 goals in his last seven outings for club and country.
Such can be the way for a player with a rapacious appetite for scoring. Such can be the way when these teams meet, too: this was the sixth time in Burnley’s last seven trips to the Etihad Stadium that Manchester City scored at least five goals.
It was, though, something of a false scoreline. “Five-one does seem really harsh on us,” said Burnley manager Scott Parker. He had a point; partly because two of City’s goals were inadvertently donated by a luckless Burnley defender, or as the Clarets were level for 23 minutes after equalising, or because Lyle Foster and Quilindschy Hartman threatened to put them ahead early in the second half.
But Haaland has a habit of distorting scorelines. He did again. First he hooked in a cross from Jeremy Doku. Then Hjalmar Ekdal and Esteve went for the same header, the Swede contriving to send Haaland galloping clear. He steered a shot past Martin Dubravka to become the highest-scoring Norwegian in Premier League history, displacing Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, his manager at Molde.
“It’s his job, two goals,” shrugged Pep Guardiola, his manager at City. “The first half, he was not much involved. We have to find him more.” When they do, as Guardiola added: “The numbers are insane. We joke but it is really incredible.”
And yet the afternoon turned on another four-minute double: not Haaland’s, which impacted the goal difference but not the result, but from Nunes. It wasn’t something that tended to happen in Kyle Walker’s heyday. Not even when City had a player Guardiola described as one of the greatest full-backs ever.
A City right-back did not tend to both score and make a goal at the Etihad Stadium, let alone as quickly. Not when Walker’s last strike on the ground he called home for eight-and-a-half years came back in 2019. Sadly for him, a new teammate proved more prolific.
With 25 minutes to go, Esteve was on a hat-trick: but for City, after twice accidentally diverting the ball into his own net. He became just the sixth player to score two own goals in the Premier League match. Ridiculously, only Haaland has more goals for City this season than the unfortunate Frenchman.
When Dubravka parried Doku’s shot, the ball rebounded in off Esteve just as he applied the finishing touch to Nunes’ cross. The fact it was an own goal denied the Portuguese an assist. Nunes was nevertheless a game-changer; a player whose duties lay mainly in defence made a difference in attack. “The two goals were hammer blows,” lamented Parker.
Nunes had popped up, six yards from the Burnley goal, to latch on to Haaland’s header and lash in a volley just as a capacity to materialise in similar territory had produced one of City’s most important goals last season, an injury-time winner against Aston Villa.
All of which may not be entirely surprising. If Nunes is happier in the final third than his own defensive third, it is because he is the right-back who isn’t really a right-back. “He is a midfield player in the final third,” said Guardiola. “He has the vision to give good passes and I encourage him to do it again. We need his physicality and I encourage him to use his pace more with the energy he has. He has incredible legs to go backwards.”
But a midfielder remains a makeshift choice, with distinct defensive deficiencies. Burnley’s first-half equaliser could be attributed in part to him: he afforded Hartman too much room to cross and Jaidon Anthony, Burnley’s player of the season so far, stabbed in his fourth goal of the campaign via a deflection off Ruben Dias. It was a goal City probably would not have conceded with Walker in his prime.
If last season and the undignified end to Walker’s City career offered ample evidence that those days are consigned to the past, there was a little more on his comeback. The slippery Doku skated past him at times. Walker was booked for a late challenge on Phil Foden. This was a novel experience for him, a 5-1 defeat at the Etihad.
But the broader issue is that City have not replaced Walker; not at all, given that, while signing 12 players in 2025, none is a specialist right-back. It did not cost them here; it may do in future. If City could first lament that Nunes is no Walker, they could then be grateful that he showed a penalty-box presence his predecessor lacked. If Haaland can sometimes camouflage everything else with a glut of goals, Walker is a reminder that unique players can feel irreplaceable.
