Soccer
Which goal scoring records can Erling Haaland break with Man City?
Manchester City’s Norwegian striker can’t stop scoring and his net-busting skills could see a host of records fall, including top Premier League scorer.
Erling Haaland’s stunning start to life in the English Premier league means he’s threatening a host of goal scoring records with his new club Manchester City, who he joined from Borussia Dortmund this summer after the English club activated his €60 million release clause. (That’s about the same in dollars).
Haaland’s goal scoring
The 22 year old striker (born 21 July 2000, in Leeds, UK) has already scored 19 goals in 12 appearances for Man City, and in doing so has set a number of records. In fact his scoring is so far off the charts so far, a tongue-in-cheek petition has even been launched in the UK to have him kicked out of the Premier League for being a robot.
Haaland’s records with Manchester City so far
Fastest player in Premier League history to score two hat-tricks
The potent Norwegian scored his first Premier League hat-trick against Crystal Palace in a 4-2 win, and followed that up by nabbing a second in the 6-0 win over Nottingham Forest four days later, making him the fastest to score two hat-tricks in the competition, beating the previous mark by 14 games.
Fastest player in the Premier League to score three hat-tricks
Haaland grabbed another hat-trick in City’s 6-3 destruction of Man Utd, making it his third in just eight games; that obliterated the previous record of 48 games to reach three hat-tricks, held by Michael Owen.
It also meant he scored three hat-tricks in a five-game spell, halving Alan Shearer’s 94-95 record of three hat-tricks in ten games.
Manchester City longest scoring streak
Haaland has scored in nine successive games. Club legend Sergio Agüero managed eight, the previous record.
Fastest to 10 Premier League goals
How long did it take Haaland to grab 10 Premier League goals? Six games. Another record.
First player to scored in first four Premier League away games
Haaland scored twice against West Ham in a 2-0 away win; once against Newcastle in the 3-3 draw in the north-east; once against Aston Villa in the 1-1 away draw and got another one away to Wolves in the 3-0 win.
That made him the first player to score in their first four Premier League away games.
Goal scoring records Haaland can break
First player to score four consecutive hat-tricks at home
If Haaland can grab a hat-trick today, Saturday, against Southampton he’ll become the first player to score four hat-tricks in a row at home.
Just for fun - one quirky hat-trick record in the Premier League is scoring consecutive hat-tricks in two different seasons. Only one player has ever managed that - Didier Drogba with Chelsea who finished the title winning 09/10 season with a hat-trick in the 8-0 win over Wigan, before starting the 10/11 campaign with another treble, against West Bromich Albion.
Most goals in a Premier League season
The current goal-scoring record for a 38-game season in the Premier League, the current format, is 32, set by Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah in 2017-18. For a 42-game season the record is held by Shearer and Andy Cole, who both hit that number in 93-94 with Newcastle and 94-95 with Blackburn respectively.
At his current rate of scoring of 1.75 goals per game, if Haaland started every game he’d be on course to score 66. The mind boggles.
Most Premier League hat-tricks
Manchester City’s Agüero holds the current high water mark for hat-tricks, at 12. Which he took ten years to amass. Haaland is on three after eight games, so you’d think he stands a fair chance of claiming this one.
Fasted to 100 goals in the Premier League
Alan Shearer raced to the 100 goal mark in the English top flight, needing only 124 games with Blackburn Rovers to grab the crown. But at his current scoring rate Haaland would need considerably less than a 100 games to get to the 100 goal mark.
All-time Premier League goal scorer
This is another record held by Alan Shearer, who scored 260 goals over his 441 game career. He also scored 23 goals with Southampton in the old English first division before the start of the Premier League in 92-93, which coincided with him leaving for Blackburn.
But the record is 260, and even if Haaland keeps up his phenomenal rate of scoring he’ll need a decent amount of time in the Premier to be able to break it. At his current rate he’d need nearly 150 games, so nearly four seasons at least. Add in rest time and injuries - although he’s so physically strong he has been hit by injuries in his career, being out for 28 games for Borussia Dortmund in his three seasons there (mostly muscular issues and knee problems) - and you’d expect him to need five or six seasons to get there. He’d need a record-breaking 43 goals per season to do it in six.
Champions League goal records Haaland could break
Most Champions League goals
Haaland now has 28 games in 22 appearances, from his time at Salzburg, Dortmund and now City. He added two against Copenhagen this week, in City’s 5-0 win. The record for Champions League goals stands at a remarkable 140 set by Cristiano Ronaldo in his spells at Manchester United, Real Madrid and Juventus.
There’s no doubt that if Haaland is injury free he’ll be playing at a club who are almost certain to be in the Champions League every season, and likely to progress deep into the tournament, giving him game time to keep amassing his Champions League goal stats. Even so, the Norwegian goal machine would likely need at least eight, nine or more seasons at the top of his game in the Champions League to trouble Ronaldo’s efforts.
Most Champions League goals in a single season
Haaland could well be on course to break this record this season. Cristiano Ronaldo currently holds it with 17 goals in the 2013-14 season with Real Madrid. Haaland already has five goals in three games in the 2022-23 Champions League season. With a possible 13 games still to play if City get to the final, Haaland could smash Ronaldo’s record
Most goals in a season in the English top division
Dixie Dean, playing for Everton in the old English first division, scored 60 goals in 39 games in the 1927-28 season, a record that seemed, till now truly unbreakable. The closest was Tom Waring of Aston Villa who slotted home 49 goals in the 1930-31 season.
But as we said above, at Haaland’s current scoring rate he would hit 66 goals this season…