Man City player ratings vs Burnley as Haaland bags opening-day brace

The Citizens found a solid start to the new season at Turf Moor.

Manchester City defeated Burnley 3-0 in the first Premier League match of the 2023-24 season. The Clarets failed to escape a home defeat against Pep Guardiola’s treble-winning side.

Different season, same Haaland!

It took Erling Haaland only four minutes to score the first goal of the new campaign.

A searching cross from Kevin De Bruyne found Rodri on the left-hand side of the box. The Portuguese star nodded the ball across the goal to Haaland, who smashed it home with a powerful finish.

The Citizens continued their attacks throughout the first period, with Haaland completing his brace in the 36th minute. This time, Julian Alvarez found the Norwegian star inside the box with a short box. Haaland then made it 2-0 with an unstoppable strike into the top-left corner of the net.

The intensity of City’s attacks decreased significantly after the break. Meanwhile, Burnley failed to mount a comeback due to the impending threat of City’s counter-attacks. The Citizens put the victory to bed when Rodri scored their third goal of the night in the 75th minute.

Before today, no player had ever scored the first AND second goals of a Premier League season.

Then Erling Haaland happened 🪄 pic.twitter.com/ioYzINgwIZ
— B/R Football (@brfootball) August 11, 2023

Player Ratings

Man City: Ederson (7); Walker (7), Akanji (7), Ake (7), Lewis (6); Rodri (9), De Bruyne (6), Bernardo (7), Foden (6); Alvarez (7) Haaland (8).

Bench: Kovacic (7), Gvardiol (7), Laporte (7), Palmer (5), McAtee (6).

Burnley: Trafford (7); Vitinho (5), Beyer (6), O’Shea (6), Al-Dakhil (6); Roberts (5), Berge (5), Cullen (6), Amdouni (6); Koleosho (5), Foster (6).

Bench: Zaroury (6), Bruun Larsen (7), Benson (5), Brownhill (-), Redmond (-).