Haaland scores again: What is the record for goals by a player in a Premier League season?

Erling Haaland has not taken long to find his feet in the Premier League. The Norwegian, who was signed by the reigning champions from Borussia Dortmund for a snip at €60 million during the summer, has now banged in 10 goals in six games after finding the net against Aston Villa on Saturday, including two trebles and a double. The 22-year-old as only failed to find the net once so far, against Bournemouth, and has already broken two Premier League records for the highest number of goals scored in August and the fewest games required to score two top-flight hat-tricks, beating the previous mark set by Demba Ba by 16 games.

The question now appears to be not so much if Haaland will break every other Premier League scoring record, but when. As one pundit quipped after his second consecutive hat-trick against Forest: “He’ll catch Alan Shearer before Harry Kane does.” The former Southampton, Blackburn, Newcastle and England striker holds the record for the most Premier League goals with 260. Kane, who has spent his entire senior club career at Tottenham, is on 188, third in the all-time standing after Wayne Rooney (208).

Haaland worth a goal a game over five seasons

There are a number of records for Haaland to aim for in his debut season at Manchester City. With just under a sixth of the season played, Haaland is on track to bag 60 goals at his current rate of scoring. While reaching that tally is unlikely, even for the prolific Norwegian, if he maintains his record of a league goal per appearance set over the past five seasons throughout the 2022-23 campaign he will finish with 42 goals, comfortably beating the previous Premier League record of 34 held by Shearer (Blackburn, 1994-95) and Andy Cole (Newcastle, 1993-94). It is also worth noting that mark was set during 42-game season. The 38-game Premier League era record is held by Mo Salah, who scored 32 for Liverpool in 2017-18.

In 83 league appearances across five seasons at Red Bull Salzburg and Dortmund Haaland scored 79 goals. With six and 10 added so far at City, Haaland’s record reads a perfect 89-89, exactly a goal a game.

Haaland could benefit from World Cup absence

Much will depend on Haaland remaining fit and available for an entire league season, which is always a tall order for any professional athlete. In three seasons at Dortmund, the Norwegian missed a total of 28 games in all competitions though a variety of issues, although most were relatively small problems. The longest he was out at one time was seven games, with a torn muscle fibre in 2020 and a hip issue at the beginning of the 2021-22 season. City manager Pep Guardiola will also not play Haaland in every game – Julián Álvarez was not brought to the Etihad simply to watch the Norwegian bang them in – but working in Haaland’s favour is that he will not be travelling to the World Cup this winter.

Other records very much in Haaland’s sights are Kevin Phillips’ mark of 30 in a debut season for Sunderland in 1999-2000 and Jamie Vardy’s record of scoring in 11 consecutive Premier League games, set for Leicester in 2015. Having beaten the previous record for goals scored in August held by Sergio Agüero and Micky Quinn (8), the Norwegian might fancy a go at taking the record of most goals scored in any single month in the Premier League from Luis Suárez (10 for Liverpool in December 2013).