Manchester City have only just started to absorb the fallout of an independent commission’s guilty verdict on their long-running Premier League charges case, with scrutiny of the club’s off-field conduct as fierce as it has ever been.

Even players who are currently out of the country and starring on international duty in all corners of the globe are not safe from the ongoing media storm - and talismanic forward Erling Haaland is certainly no exception.

A dispute broke out in Norway in recent days over why the striker was kept away from pre-match press obligations, with the finger of blame pointed squarely at his club by one corner of national press.

However, the accusation drew a furious response from the man in charge of the national team's footballing outlook, who saw it as a slight on himself and was in no mood to let the talk go unanswered. 

The controversy stemmed from comments made by NRK's Jan Petter Saltvedt, who implied Manchester City had a hand in Erling Haaland’s absence from media commitments before Norway’s UEFA Nations League meeting with Portugal.

With pre-match press duties a routine part of any international week, the decision to excuse a player of Erling Haaland’s profile was always likely to raise eyebrows back home.

“Nobody believes anything other than that it is Manchester City who has instructed the Norwegian FA to spare their leading jewel from the questions that would have come,” Saltvedt suggested.

Norway manager Stale Solbakken was scathing in his response over the claims, insisting the decision had been his alone and that Manchester City had played no part in that choice whatsoever.

“I can say with my hand on my heart that Saltvedt is talking utter rubbish from A to Z,” the Norway boss said. “I haven’t spoken to anyone at Manchester City about the media since Erling was to move from Dortmund to City.”

The 57-year-old was adamant that the call to withdraw Erling Haaland from his media obligations had come internally and without any prompting from the player himself. It was, he stressed, nothing more than a judgement made in the interests of his squad.

“This was a decision I made without informing Erling. I just said: ’You can let this go. If you want to go, then you go. But for me you are exempt’," he explained, even going as far as offering access to his phone and email accounts to the media to prove it. "That’s a lie. It also undermines my integrity.”

On the pitch, there was nothing to dispute. Erling Haaland found the net in Norway’s 1-2 defeat to Portugal, extending the remorseless scoring run that has become the backbone of both his country’s attack and Manchester City’s own.

A disappointing result for all concerned did little to halt the individual output that has made him one of the most feared strikers in the world game.

One interpretation is that the accusation is partly a manifestation of the frustration felt in Norway about the less-than-ideal result. Stale Solbakken’s rebuttal was emphatic and his anger at the slur on his integrity clear.

It is, of course, far from the biggest concern during a bruising few days for Manchester City, who are now digesting that landmark guilty verdict and bracing for the appeal to come. Through it all, Erling Haaland did what he tends to do, and scored.