There was a moment in the first half against Southampton where nobody in the ground could believe what had happened.
Erling Haaland had raced onto a Phil Foden ball with all the energy of a lion about to devour a jackal and, where many would have taken a touch to settle themselves or bring it onto their stronger foot, he had lashed the ball first time with his weaker right straight in for another goal. Except as he wheeled away in celebration, the ball instead rebounded off the inside of the post and careered back past the other post to meet the striker at the touchline.
City fans and Haaland were reminded for what felt like the first time in forever what it feels like to have a striker go through and not score. It has been obvious that the Norwegian cannot keep up his preposterous scoring record, and yet this miss still took everyone at the Etihad by surprise.
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By this stage too, only 20 minutes in, it was beginning to feel already like a frustrating afternoon against a side that know more than most how to get a result against Guardiola's side. Whatever their struggles this season, Ralph Hasenhuttl is one of the best in the division at stopping City.
Riyad Mahrez, preferred in the starting XI to Jack Grealish, had seen three chances go begging before Haaland's miss. An early shot was saved well by former City academy player Gavin Bazunu but there was less mitigation for blazing over first from a Joao Cancelo cross and then from a corner.
Those missed chances may have rattled City in previous seasons, but with a goalscoring phenomenon at the head of this team there is now much less need to panic. And as opposition players concern themselves with how to stop the big No.9, there are plenty of others in the XI capable of getting themselves onto the scoresheet.
Cancelo, a right-back by trade lest we forget, broke the deadlock in the 20th minute with a terrific solo goal. Collecting the ball in the Southampton half, he dribbled all the way into the box, sold James Ward-Prowse a dummy and then fired through a defender's legs and past Bazunu.
After another ten minutes Foden had doubled the lead with a cute chip as Kevin De Bruyne found him in the box, and a fixture that had looked tricky had been all but won. It said a lot for the way the first half went that Southampton fans were singing with gallows humour as injury time approached celebrating the fact that they had had a shot.
With a two-goal cushion, City completely dominated the second half. Mahrez made up for his earlier wastefulness by volleying home a Rodri chip shortly after the restart and Cancelo toyed with the increasingly exasperated opponents.
The only downside looked to be the lack of a goal for Haaland, who just seemed to be having one of those afternoons where nothing would break for him. But it turns out even Sod's Law does not apply to him as he banged in his 20th of the season after more excellent work from Cancelo and De Bruyne.
Haaland has now scored in seven consecutive league games - more than any City player has ever managed in a single season - and his 15 league goals are as many as De Bruyne top-scored with last season. It is October 8.
It is hard to get away from the difference the 22-year-old has made to this team. Even in a game where he didn't get the bulk of the goals, the way the visitors gravitated to him desperately whenever he approached the box created space for the likes of Foden to thrive just as it did last week in the derby.
Guardiola won't care who gets the goals if the City striker can bring the best out of his teammates, and the signs are already there that he is. No team in Premier League history has managed more than the 33 goals this side have from their opening nine fixtures and they are the first team since Wolves in 1959 to score at least three in eight consecutive home matches in the top division.
Foden is up to six league goals for the season, two-thirds of the total he managed last year and De Bruyne already has more assists in the competition than he got last year; four of his nine have been for Haaland. His teeing up of Foden for the second means that he now has more Premier League assists than any other City player - overtaking David Silva - and is up to fifth in the overall league.
As much as Haaland has been signed to bring Champions League glory, it is games such as this and Crystal Palace at home where he also makes the difference and City now have five more points from those two fixtures than they managed last year. In a campaign where every point usually counts, that could be priceless.
The big one looming is Liverpool. If City have struggled in recent years against the likes of Palace and Southampton, their wretched run at Anfield stretches back far longer.
Nobody at the Etihad is writing off Jurgen Klopp's team despite their average start to the campaign because they know that they are one of possibly only two teams capable of putting together a long winning run. However, a City win next week will put even more pressure on their biggest challengers by stretching the points gap between them well beyond ten points.
Liverpool will not need to watch much footage of this season to know that they will be encountering a different animal to the one they faced in the Community Shield. Haaland is already helping this City team achieve results that have been beyond them before his arrival.
At this rate, Haaland not scoring would be a bigger shock than City winning at Anfield.
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