He's used to terrifying defences but on Friday Manchester City striker Erling Haaland completed his transformation into the Joker for Halloween to scare unsuspecting fans. The Norwegian goal machine donned the famous purple suit, face paint and green hair to torment residents in Manchester given opposition backlines a brief reprieve before returning to action this weekend.
Getty Images SportHaaland has been tormenting backlines this season
Haaland is the Premier League's top scorer this season having struck 11 times in his opening nine appearances. The City goal machine is expected to land the Golden Boot this season having missed out on the accolade to Liverpool star Mohamed Salah last term.
The 25-year-old still scored 22 league goals for Pep Guardiola's side but was restricted to just 31 starts in England's top tier owing to injury. Salah, meanwhile, enjoyed a campaign to remember as he scored 29 goals and laid on an additional 18 assists as the Reds secured the Premier League title in Arne Slot's debut season at the Anfield helm.
Haaland, who blanked for only the second Premier League game this season against Aston Villa at the weekend, missed the midweek EFL Cup win over Swansea due to injury sustained in the 1-0 defeat to Villa but is expected to return for City's welcome of Bournemouth on Sunday. And having been held by one Villan last time out, Haaland took to the streets as Batman's adversary this week to scare the wits out of supporters.
AdvertisementWatch the full video belowFrom striker to YouTuber
Haaland only recently started his official YouTube channel and his first video – 'Day in the Life of a pro footballer: Erling Haaland' – has amassed a little under 6m views. At the time of writing, the second video – 'I Went Undercover as the Joker in the Streets of Manchester' – has already been viewed 50k times despite only going live earlier this evening.
Including YouTube shorts, the channel itself has 11m views, while 43% of their audience watched the first episode on TV.
Despite only a handful of videos, Haaland's official channel has gained 640k new subs and nearly 900,000 watch time hours.
Getty Images SportMarmoush and Cherki return a boost
City responded well to their disappointing 1-0 loss to Aston Villa last week with a 3-1 win over Swansea in the EFL Cup as Omar Marmoush and Rayan Cherki both made goalscoring returns to the starting XI.
The pair arrived in January and June, respectively, but have endured recent stints on the sidelines due to injury. Guardiola will hope the return of the pair will ease the burden on Haaland, who has scored 64.7% of City's 17 league goals this season.
