The qualities of Erling Haaland, master goalscorer, are many and they are varied, and it was Luton Town’s misfortune that they encountered all of them in the space of one FA Cup evening.
The Manchester City striker can, of course, score all flavours of goal. He can run in behind a defence, or he can sniff out the pocket of space in a static penalty area. He can also project himself upon a game to the extent that someone in the opposition does something foolish and gifts him one.
All of that happened in the 77 minutes he played at Kenilworth Road and along the way he scored five goals before the clock had ticked past 60 minutes.
The Luton defence can at least look back fondly on the final 17 minutes he spent on the pitch – at last they kept him quiet. Although Mateo Kovacic did, in that period, strike the sixth sweetly past Tim Krul who had, to his credit, previously stopped a couple of Haaland efforts.
Yet this was undoubtedly the work of a man operating on a plain to which only the very best goalscorers ascend. His first four goals were served up by Kevin De Bruyne, an accomplice of the highest order to the English game’s most ruthless snaffler of chances.
