Ederson shows off Man City 'weapon' to prompt Erling Haaland hopes

It says a lot about the confidence of Burnley goalkeeper James Trafford that he went into the opening weekend without Erling Haaland in his fantasy team and with himself as vice-captain.

It took the Manchester City phenomenon less than four minutes to show up the high-risk gamble, but despite conceding three on the night and losing early ground in his mini leagues it was a decent debut for Trafford. As good a prospect as he looks though, at the other end of the pitch Ederson was giving a masterclass in the type of performance that an increasing number of keepers and clubs in the league are aiming for.

City may have scored early but they came under regular pressure from Burnley in the first half, who man-marked and pressed high and aggressively. They used similar tactics to last season in their FA Cup meeting, and caused the Blues similar problems.

That often left Ederson as the spare man, left looking for a pass forward with all of his teammates marked. It was very good from Burnley, but Ederson is even better.

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Manu Akanji (with 101) was the only player on the pitch to make more passes than him and more than 80 per cent of the Brazilian's 70 were accurate. That is even more impressive when considering 28 - so four in every ten - were long balls punted forward to try and play over the top of Burnley's press.

Whether it was for Phil Foden, Julian Alvarez or Erling Haaland, the long balls into the opposition half stretched the Burnley defence to breaking point as a number of half-chances were opened up by the power and accuracy of Ederson. Guardiola described it afterwards as "another weapon we have to use" against teams using that level of marking,