Manchester City and Newcastle United’s Premier League clash turned beast mode at St. James’ Park. The match took a hard step when Erling Haaland, the leading scorer for the reigning champs, got left bloodied and had his sock torn during the first half of the encounter. Despite Haaland’s injury, Manchester City managed to take a 1-0 lead into halftime thanks to a goal from Josko Gvardiol.

When Gvardiol scored soon after, Haaland headed straight for the City bench to get some treatment and was sporting a limp for the rest of the first half. However, Newcastle fought back and secured a 1-1 draw with a penalty from Anthony Gordon. The accidental clash caused some obvious discomfort to City’s number 9.

Pep Guardiola told the media following the game at St. James Park that Haaland was dealing with some knocks. A few hours ago, @City_Xtra calmed supporters by stating that “Erling Haaland is present in #ManCity training as normal.” Erling Haaland took part in Manchester City training today and showed no signs of discomfort. He looked fit and ready to play his part for the world champions tomorrow evening.

Haaland’s arrival in training is particularly key with City managing this season to defend both their Premier League and Champions League titles. Haaland is on course to have his most prolific season yet, as he has 10 goals in just five Premier League games. He broke multiple records last season, even setting a new landmark in the history of English top-flight goal-scoring, and is now undisputedly among Pep Guardiola’s most vital components. During the preseason, he had once again proved why it was so.

In City’s pre-season game against Barcelona in Orlando on July 30, Haaland had to be replaced at half-time. City twice came from behind to draw 2-2, before the Spanish side went on to win 4-1 in a penalty shootout. At that point, City was still searching for their first pre-season game win after losses against Celtic in Chapel Hill and AC Milan in New York.

After the match, Pep Guardiola had said, “He got some niggles. He didn’t feel good. He is disturbing something, doesn’t feel comfortable, we don’t want to take risks. Sooner or later he has to take a step. He has niggles, muscular, [we] don’t want to take a risk and lose him for three weeks. That would be a problem – 60, 70% of the squad are on holiday.” But Haaland came back superbly in the City’s last preseason game against Premier League rivals Chelsea at the Ohio Stadium in Columbus on August 3.

In front of 71,280 fans in Ohio, City picked up 4-2 win against Chelsea with a hat-trick from Haaland. Two of the goals came in the opening five minutes of the game. The first of these came with a mistake from Chelsea. Levi Colwill brought Haaland inside the area after a loose pass. Although Haaland had to retake the spot kick, he made no mistake with his second attempt for an early lead.

Seconds later Chelsea’s Moises Caicedo miscued his pass to Tosin Adarabioyo which was cut out by the Norwegian. His right foot then did its work to make it two inside five minutes. In the second half, James McAtee grabbed an assist as he fed Haaland to complete his hat-trick. Understandably, City treads carefully with Haaland.

City will return to Champions League action on Tuesday night away to Slovan Bratislava in their second game of the competition. Newcastle, on the other hand, host AFC Wimbledon on the same date in the Carabao Cup third round. Meanwhile, Haaland is being compared to Cristiano Ronaldo for a unique record.

Cristiano Ronaldo better than Erling Haaland?

Erling Haaland has already matched Cristiano Ronaldo as the player who has scored 100 goals for a European team in the quickest time. The Norwegian international achieved the same target in 105 games as Ronaldo did at Real Madrid.

The former Manchester United manager, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, thinks differently on this matter, comparing if Ronaldo were a part of the current Manchester City squad, he would score more goals than Haaland.

During the Oslo Business Forum, The Portugal international’s former teammate remarked, “He’d probably score more than Erling Haaland is doing at the moment [for Manchester City],” “So I speak to Cristiano; we get him to Manchester United, but I think maybe that affected the whole dressing room, the dynamics in the dressing room.”

The only other injury issue for Manchester City, aside from the long-term absences of Oscar Bobb, Rodri, and Nathan Ake, is Kevin De Bruyne. The team didn’t see the international player from Belgium during practice earlier today. It doesn’t seem probable that he will play in tomorrow’s game with Slovan Bratislava in the UEFA Champions League.