Title battle and-World Cup is Erl's biggest test

ERLING Haaland took his extraordinary record in 2025/26 to 30 goals in 19 appearances when he scored twice for Norway against Estonia on Thursday night, all but securing a first World Cup appearance in 28 years for his country.

- By TYRONE MARSHALL

For the first time in his career, the 25-year-old will have to deal with a major summer tournament and the effects that can have on his fitness and managing a physical workload during the season.

He will also have to do it in what is expected to be one of the hottest climates imaginable for a tournament.

It will bring into focus his workload over the course of this campaign, with Haaland undroppable for City.

In those 19 games, he has found the back of the net in 17 of them.

His season arguably began with 256 minutes in the Club World Cup and a three-week break after City were knocked out by Al-Hilal in the last 16, which might well turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

Since the Premier League kicked off in August, Haaland has started 15 of City's 17 fixtures, only missing the Carabao Cup wins against Huddersfield and Swansea. Of those 15 starts, he has played an average of 86 minutes in them, and his tally of 1,283 minutes for the club this season is more than 90 minutes ahead of the second-most-used player, Ruben Dias.

Haaland's stats for Norway are similar.