What Erling Haaland did to Viktor Gyokeres during Arsenal vs Man City speaks volumes

Manchester City striker Erling Haaland continued his fine start to the 2025/2026 season for club and country on Sunday with his 13th goal in just eight games against Arsenal.

It took the frontman just nine minutes to get on the scoresheet for Manchester City at the Emirates Stadium. Following a good start to the game by the Gunners, Haaland rounded-off a rapid counter-attack to deal Mikel Arteta's side an early blow.

Noni Madueke and Martin Zubimendi both came close to finding a leveller in the first-half in north London but Gianluigi Donnarumma pulled off a number of saves.

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Arteta made changes at half-time with Bukayo Saka and Eberechi Eze coming on. As the interval came to an end, the mind-games between the two rivals continued.

Arsenal's players had come out before the City players - who in turn forced the home team to wait for a couple of minutes. Then after re-emerging from the tunnel, Haaland seemed to have a small interaction with Viktor Gyokeres.

The Norway striker went up to the Gunners' centre-forward just before the second-half started, patted him on his back and had a conversation with him.

As he has shown in his form at the start of the season, Haaland is expected to once again be a huge part of City's Premier League title push this season. Gyokeres is vital to Arsenal's - after his big-money switch from Sporting CP.

Since signing for the club, the Sweden international has scored three times in the Premier League. And he will be hoping to hit similar numbers to the ones Haaland has at City.

Gyokeres wasn't the hero for Arsenal but Arteta's men did manage to rescue a point late on. Gabriel Martinelli continued to rediscover his form with a superb lobbed effort over Donnarumma after latching onto Eze's long ball.