Foden full of praise for 'world-class' Haaland | OneFootball

Phil Foden has spoken glowingly about prolific team-mate Erling Haaland after his double inspired City to a 2-0 Premier League victory over Everton.

The Norwegian striker struck a superb second-half brace within five minutes to propel City to victory, taking his top-flight tally this term to a remarkable 11 in eight appearances.

To put his goalscoring exploits into perspective, a player in the Premier League has only reached 10+ goals in the opening eight matches on three occasions in history, and Haaland is responsible for them all.

Our No.9 has now also scored in 11 successive matches for club and country and after our latest victory which saw us move top of the table, Foden reserved plenty of praise for the forward.

"We know he’s got that quality to time his runs to perfection and always be in the right position," he said.

"We know if they mark him out of the game he’s still capable of scoring. He doesn’t lose concentration and you know he only needs one chance to score.

"He remained very patient and as you can see he’s always there for us at the right times and this is a sign of a world class striker.

"It was difficult. I think in the first half we weren’t really at it. We weren’t playing forward as quick as we could do. We took too long on the ball and we couldn’t find the space in between the lines.

"The manager spoke about it at half time. In the second half we were much more meaningful going forward, breaking lines and we had a lot of chances, we created a lot. Overall we can be happy with the performance."

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Foden was at the heart of both of our goals at the Etihad Stadium, firstly playing through Nico O'Reilly to cross for Haaland, before also finding Savinho to square for our second.

He almost set up Haaland for his treble with a remarkable curling pass in stoppage time at the end of the game, but the striker was well denied by Everton goalkeeper Jordan Pickford.

"I think I’m improving my relationship with Erling," revealed Foden after the game. "I think I played a lot of good passes in behind today.

"Maybe he could have finished a few but every time I pass it he seems to miss unfortunately! No, No I think we’re definitely building that relationship.

"I’m finding him more in behind and where he needs the ball to score goals. It’s something I’ve been working on."