Paul Merson has suggested Everton would have beat Manchester City “more easily” than City beat them if they had Erling Haaland.

Cityhave not lost a game since they faced Brighton on the last day of August. Since then, they have won seven games in all competitions.

That puts them second in the Premier League – three points behind leaders Arsenal – and they’re currently in the top five teams in the Champions League.

That is largely thanks to superstar striker Haaland. The Norwegian has scored in his last eight club games, and has a total of 15 goals in 11 games this term – 11 in the league and four in the Champions League.

He bagged the opener in City’s 2-0 UCL victory over Villarreal on Tuesday and afterwards Merson suggested that without Haaland, the Manchester outfit would be nowhere close to where they currently are.

He said on Sky Sports: “I don’t think they’re taking it easy. I don’t think they’re a top team at the moment.

“I watched the Everton game against Man City on Saturday, if you swapped Beto – and no disrespect to Beto – for Haaland, Everton would’ve won the game more easily than what Man City won it.

“And that was the difference. And that’s quite worrying.

“Players get older, players get changed, Kevin De Bruyne’s gone. [Phil] Foden hasn’t hit the heights of a couple of years ago. [Bernardo] Silva’s getting a little bit older. It all goes from there.

“Defensively they’re not great, the goalkeeper’s just come in who I think is is a good goalkeeper but we’ll have to wait and see. He’s not Ederson where he’s going to make chances from a goal kick.

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“Teams can really now sort of step up on Haaland because if they get tight they’re [City] not going to hit it 70 yards over his head and he’s one-on-one with the goalie.

“They’re still in the title race because of Haaland. But you take Haaland out of the equation and then I’d struggle to think they would get in the top four.”

Indeed, after Haaland for City in the league this season, no player has more than one goal, with just a few sitting on one.

It might well be grave for the Citizens if Haaland was to get injured, but for the time being they are thriving in the knowledge that he’s in some of the form of his life, with goals in his last 12 games between club and country.

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