Haaland is human, West Ham are no longer held back on a leash and Arsenal won't win it again: three things we learned

By Alessandro Schiavone at London Stadium

West Ham 1-3 Man City

Goals: Haaland 3x (MC), Own-goal Ruben Dias (WH)

What have we learned in Man City's 3-1 win over West Ham?

Erling Haaland is human after all

Hat-trick juggernaut Erling Haaland could have had five alone to his name. But while his header in the early minutes was fired over, he also failed to get the better of Lukasz Fabianski from an acute angle in the dying stages. But we're nit-picking here, aren't we? The Norwegian now has 97 goals in 102 Man City appearances, 19 in August alone since he's in England, seven in the opening three league games while his impressive haul includes the same number in only five meetings with the Hammers. Numbers that defy any logic. Slipped through by Bernardo Silva he hit his first goal of the game after slotting the ball past Alphonse Areola. And the Hammers' new defensive partnership Maximilian Kilman and Kostas Mavropanos showed that, just like their predecessors Nayef Aguerd and Kurt Zouma, do not possess the tools to keep the Norwegian force of nature quiet. Well, not many do. A first-time thunderbolt restored the lead before he killed off Julen Lopetegui's men's chances of a late revival when Matheus Nunes' quick thinking released him into space late on. There's no easy path to immortality but Haaland is doing just that. Yesterday he inflicted further damage on his first-ever English victim and a pretty decent one at that. Scoring well over a 1000 career goals is certainly well within reach.

Arsenal will be bridesmaids again

Man City are just head and shoulders above the rest. And that by a country mile. The 'knowing' when to speed things up and slow down is something they will never unlearn under Pep Guardiola. And West Ham learned it the hard way. At 2-1 up, Pep's men managed the game with clever passing and by crowding the central areas. Kudus had the chance to level when he crashed his shot against the post but that was as close as it got against the superhuman Etihad giants. Raheem Sterling won't be the one to claw the title away from City and Arsenal will be bridesmaids again.

The mentality around West Ham has changed

West Ham went down but not without a fight against arguably the finest team in the world. They could have capitulated after Haaland's 10-minute opener. But they hung in there and  found a route back when Bowen's pass was inadvertently deflected into his own net by Portuguese defender Ruben Dias. In other times, under David Moyes, they may have been on the end of a hammering but here they were in it until the 83rd minute. The Scotsman often held West Ham back on a leash in big games for fear of being batterer, which he often couldn't prevent anyway. But yesterday they took risks, defended for their lives and created some openings with their incisive passing and ideas on the ball. And the Hammers could have levelled the game with Ghanaian midfielder Kudus only for the post to deny them. In the end it wasn't enough but the mentality is changing and Lopetegui's tactical blueprint will get them far. And while Moyes often stuck with his tried-and-trusted men, Spaniard Lopetegui is not afraid of making big calls, such as dropping a key figure like Tomas Soucek yesterday to give them more fluidity. Which almost paid off.