After trotting onto the Etihad Stadium pitch less than an hour before kick-off, Erling Haaland spent a good five minutes barely moving from the same spot in Manchester City’s half for the warm-up.

Some managers, notably Jurgen Klopp, watch their opponents warm-up to gauge intensity. Jose Mourinho took the temperature of his team from these final moments of preparation. To watch Haaland prepare, little points to the utter devastation of a defence that is about to happen.

Haaland stood in his place in the middle of City’s half, aiming at Jack Grealish, who would take the ball and pretend to dance around an imaginary defender. Other City players were a whirl of activity but City’s top scorer passed, volleyed and chipped at Grealish like a golfer practising his lob wedge.

This is all in keeping with Pep Guardiola’s careful treatment of Haaland, who he needs fresh for the Premier League title run-in and City’s tilt at the Champions League and FA Cup. “Nutrition, rest, sleep, food,” is how he describes Haaland’s training schedule. He can be with masseurs and physios while his teammates are on the pitches of the Etihad Campus.

Last week he put his form down to drinking milk, his “magic potion”.

He has scored 47 goals this season, with 32 in the Premier League, to match Mohamed Salah’s record for a 38-match campaign. His shooting drill to end the warm-up explains that Haaland is a big-game player, saving himself for when the real action starts.

Haaland takes six shots and scores half of them. It seems meaningless unless there are 50,000 fans cheering him on. He is off target with one finish, hits a post and has another saved. He does not practise the chipped finish that earns him a second goal in the 3-1 win against Leicester.

After the win, it was pointed out to Guardiola by a Norwegian journalist that Haaland’s recent record is 16 goals from 21 shots. “All the statistics, I don’t know them,” Guardiola said. All he knows is he has a striker who explodes into action.

The only exertion in his pre-match routine is a little sprint to the dressing room past the Tunnel Club fans on the touchline who have paid for a close-up view of the warm-up.

There are light stretches in a huddle with his teammates, then a rondo drill where players try to keep possession away from their teammates. It looked more of an effort doing a lap of honour after the finish, when Haaland had scored his two goals before being taken off at half-time.

The Daily Telegraph in London

We cannot drop intensity: Jesus

London: Arsenal must maintain the intensity for a full 90 minutes if they are to challenge for the Premier League title, forward Gabriel Jesus said after they squandered a two-goal lead in Sunday's 2-2 draw at West Ham United.

Arsenal also let a 2-0 lead slip against Liverpool earlier this month and Jesus told the club's website they had to stop letting opponents off the hook.

"Once again, the three points were in our hands," he said. "The game is 90 minutes, it's not 20, in this case, today (Sunday), 30 minutes. As a team, we have to raise the level and come back to our principles.

"We know our strength, we know what we can do. Where we want to attack the opponent, in the first 10 to 20 minutes we did so good, after that we dropped our level and that obviously cannot happen if you want to fight for the title."

Arsenal next host Southampton on Friday before travelling to Manchester City on April 26.

Reuters