Erling Haaland strikes again as Manchester City beat Brentford
Aston Villa clinched a 2-1 victory over Burnley while Wolves an Brighton played out a draw
Erling Haaland ticked the Gtech Stadium off his to-do list by firing Manchester City to a 1-0 win at Brentford.
The Bees’ ground down by the River Thames was one of only two Premier League venues Haaland had not previously scored at, but he put that to rights with a trademark strike.
Just eight minutes had elapsed when the Norwegian striker raced on to a ball over the top from Josko Gvardiol.
Haaland bulldozed his way between Bees defenders Sepp van den Berg and Nathan Collins before lashing his shot past Caoimhin Kelleher.
It was Haaland’s 18th goal in 11 matches for club and country this season and leaves Anfield as the only ground he has yet to score at in the Premier League.
His ninth league goal of the campaign also took City boss Pep Guardiola to 250 wins in the competition, a landmark reached in just 349 matches – the previous quickest manager to reach that milestone was Arsene Wenger in a comparatively pedestrian 423 games.
Sadly, City’s afternoon in the west London sunshine was soured when midfielder Rodri suffered more injury misery.
In the 20th minute the disconsolate Spaniard, still making his way back from almost a year out due to an ACL injury, sat down in the centre circle holding his hamstring and eventually limped off to be replaced by Nico Gonzalez.
Elsewhere, Aston Villa continued their positive momentum with a 2-1 win over struggling Burnley. Donyell Malen was the hero for Unai Emery’s side sending the midlands club 1-0 up in the 25th minute before adding his second just fter the hour mark at Villa Park.
Lesley Ugochukwu netted a consolation goal for the Clarets who threatened to make a comeback with just over 10 minutes left on the clock but Villa managed to hold out and secure the points.
The win takes them up to 13th in the league table after a poor start to the season and they are slowly distancing themselves from the relegation zone with the gap now five points.
Meanwhile, there was late drama at Molineux as Wolves were pegged back in the 86th minute by Jan Paul van Hecke who secured a point in a 1-1 draw for Brighton.
The hosts went ahead through an own goal off Bart Verbruggen who’s initial save to keep out Marshall Munetsi’s volley bounced off the crossbar before deflecting in off his own back.
Wolves then failed to take control of the game and add a second goal and they were punished by Van Hecke’s late header to leave them bottom of the table.
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