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With one glance at the fixture list, West Ham’s record-breaking, £36million striker summed up the feelings of the club’s fans.

“What a s*** game to start with!” joked Sebastien Haller. “I go there for a lot of money, now first game City! Why?

“There are better games to build your confidence! Hopefully I will touch the ball! We will see.”

The 25-year-old Frenchman who helped shoot Eintracht Frankfurt to the Europa League semi-finals last season is, of course, full of admiration for Pep Guardiola’s champions.

(Image: West Ham United FC via Getty Images)

“What can I say?” He added. “Everyone needs to be prepared. They are the Champions from the League, the Cup, from even the Cup that I don’t know the name of.

“So yes, it will be difficult. We will need to make a crazy game. It is probably best for the team to get a game like that because we will need to be focused 100per cent.”

Haller could have been a West Ham player last summer but decided he needed another season to prove himself in Germany.

After 32 goals in 75 games over two seasons for Frankfurt, Haller - who rejected his parents’ attempts to force him into Judo as a kid - is a massive coup for the Irons and looks to be an upgrade on moody Marko Arnautovic.

As you’d expect from a man nicknamed ‘Scarface’, adapting to life in London holds no fears for him.

(Image: 2019 West Ham United FC)

Haller knows all about the attempted robbery on Arsenal pair Mesut Ozil and Sead Kolasinac recently. Also the failed robbery attempt on ex-Hammer Andy Carroll three years ago.

“Listen, I will tell you something,” he went on. “I was in Holland. In a small village. Everyone said: ‘Oh, this is nice here!’.

“It’s the only place people killed my car. They burgled my house. When I was playing for Utrecht.

“The took the inside of the wheel of my car so you could not use it any more. “I didn’t even know you could do that but people told me: ‘Yes, you can sell it for €2000’.

(Image: Dean Mouhtaropoulos)

“At the time my wife was pregnant. My sister was there, she was pregnant too. My niece was seven, she was with us and she was scared.

“We all discovered it together. She saw the house and it was a mess. She was so scared. She said: ‘When people can come to your place and do this, you don’t feel safe’.

Since that time we never slept in that house again. We moved two days afterwards. So yes. I want to say that it is possible to get trouble everywhere.”

His scar is from a game of hide and seek as a kid.

“I fell on my parents’ bed - twice! After they stitched it, the people in my neighbourhood called me the guy with scars. Scarface.”

Haller is hoping to leave a few defences scarred from their experience of meeting him this season.