De Bruyne injury sours winning Premier League start for Man City

Manchester City could be without Kevin De Bruyne for a number of weeks after he suffered the recurrence of a hamstring injury as the defending champions opened the Premier League season with a 3-0 win at Burnley on Friday.

Manchester City could be without Kevin De Bruyne for a number of weeks after he suffered the recurrence of a hamstring injury as the defending champions opened the Premier League season with a 3-0 win at Burnley on Friday.

Burnley boss Vincent Kompany has a statue outside City's Etihad Stadium in honour of his decorated playing career with the English champions.

Kompany returned the Clarets back to the Premier League at the first time of asking and transformed Burnley's playing style in the process during his first season in charge.

Despite the scoreline, the home side were far from outclassed but paid for the lack of a clinical finisher like Haaland.

Luca Koleosho and Zeki Amdouni missed good chances to equalise, while Amdouni also had a penalty appeal turned down.

"There were a lot of periods of the game where we did ourselves proud," said Kompany.

However, they were hit with a sucker punch when Julian Alvarez laid off Kyle Walker's cross into the path of Haaland to produce an unstoppable effort in off the underside of the bar nine minutes before half-time.

With the wind taken from Burnley's sails, City took a stranglehold of the game after the break without ever having to hit top gear.

Rodri was the unlikely hero with the only goal in Istanbul two months ago and he started the new season as he finished the last by smashing home from close range after a goalmouth scramble.

Burnley's miserable night was rounded off in stoppage time when Anass Zaroury was shown a straight red card for a wild challenge on Walker.