Don’t bother watching those gazillion-dollar TV prequels to The Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. Who needs gratuitous nudity, multiple dragons and surprise beheadings when the real Nordic legend is bang in front of us, his mighty frame squeezed into the light blue of Manchester City and devouring the grass of the Etihad? (Though not literally, yet.) He is an outlandish–looking creature from the far north, clearly designed by some dotty scientist, faster, bigger, stronger and more ruthless than anyone else in football and effortlessly leaping higher too.
Quick to smile, often at awkward moments, he moves effortlessly with that curious stiff-armed gait as he outruns everyone else on the pitch. He is more or less the perfect creation apart from a tiny bug in some computer’s language programme that means his English is slightly awkward, a bit otherworldly, unlike most Norwegians who speak English better than you or me.
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