Arsenal moved four points clear at the league summit with a 3-0 win over Bournemouth but Haaland eased any City nerves with his dominant first-half hat-trick at Etihad Stadium.

That treble included two penalties before Haaland added to his tally after the interval, after Hwang Hee-chan's consolation strike, to move to a competition-leading 25 goals this term.

Haaland’s replacement Julian Alvarez added further gloss late on, as City, which has a game in hand on Arsenal, cut the gap to the Gunners to just one point. Wolves remain 11th with just one win in their past eight league games.

City needed just 12 minutes to take the lead. Rayan Ait-Nouri conceded a penalty for an inadvertent collision with Josko Gvardiol, and Haaland made no mistake from the spot after a VAR review confirmed the on-field decision, sending Jose Sa the wrong way and sweeping into the bottom-left corner.

Sa was equal to Haaland shortly after, though, tipping away the striker's header after Bernardo Silva's right-wing centre, but the Wolves goalkeeper was powerless to prevent the Norwegian doubling his tally after 35 minutes, as Haaland climbed high to redirect Rodri’s back-post centre into the bottom-right corner.

Haaland had his hat-trick when, on the stroke of half-time, he repeated the trick from 12 yards after he had drawn a clumsy challenge from Nelson Semedo, with the VAR having recommended an on-field review of the incident.

Wolves reduced the deficit eight minutes into the second half as Hwang fired into an empty net from Ederson's unconvincing punch, though City restored its three-goal advantage just a minute later.

Haaland latched on to Phil Foden's over-the-top pass before cutting inside and blasting a left-footed strike into the top-left corner for the finest of his four strikes.

There was time for City to increase its goal difference, too, as substitute Alvarez wrapped up the scoring after Rodri regained possession high before finding the Argentinean, who angled a low effort across Sa.

City is now unbeaten in its past 20 Premier League games, becoming the second side to manage a streak of 20-plus undefeated league matches on five separate occasions, after fierce rival Manchester United (seven).