City end losing streak with confident win over Wolves

Another game without a goal for Erling Haaland, but it was at least one with a difference.

- By RICHARD JOLLY AT THE ETIHAD STADIUM

There was a cameo for Manchester City's great constant. There were goals from the two men charged with relieving the scoring burden on his sizeable shoulders. Haaland's recent return now stands at a lone penalty in his last nine games, but this was not a day for City to lament that.

For weeks, Pep Guardiola had cited Omar Marmoush's absence at the African Cup of Nations as a reason he could not rest Haaland. When the Egyptian returned and the Norwegian took a turn on the bench, Marmoush scored: but as a left winger. “I see him more as a striker, not a proper winger,” said Guardiola, who remains a contrarian, even if Haaland remains the only out-and-out centre-forward in the City squad.

But not, arguably, the only specialist scorer. Only Haaland and Brentford's Igor Thiago have more Premier League goals than Antoine Semenyo and the £62.5m signing's first for City - but third in three different competitions - was evidence of his clinical touch. Haaland's outing spanned 17 minutes and came when the game was decided.

It meant City ended one of the worst weeks of Guardiola's reign with something of a routine win. After comprehensive defeats in first the Manchester derby and then to the underdogs of Bodo/Glimt, they encountered an unnecessarily placid Wolves side.