It is fair to say that the football community are running out of superlatives to describe just how incredible Erling Braut Haaland has been since arriving at Manchester City over the summer.
Joining from Borussia Dortmund for what is turning out to be a bargain fee of around £51m, the 22-year-old has settled into life at the Etihad Stadium quickly and he continues to score goals for fun having previously had plenty of joy during spells at Molde, Red Bull Salzburg and Dortmund.
Since drawing a blank against Liverpool in the Community Shield, Haaland has found the net a total of 17 times in just 10 appearances across all competitions, more than any other player in Europe's top-five leagues.
The Norway international has broken a plethora of records along the way, and here, Sports Mole takes an in-depth look at the striker's record-breaking start with Pep Guardiola's side.
Debut delight
Haaland began his Man City career with a brace on his Premier League debut against West Ham United in a 2-0 win at the London Stadium in August, becoming the first Citizens player to score twice on his debut in the competition since club legend Sergio Aguero back in 2011.
The striker also scored twice on his Champions League debut for Guardiola's side in a comfortable 4-0 away victory against Sevilla in September, with the Norwegian becoming the first player in the club's history to score on both his Premier League and Champions League debuts.
His first strike after only 20 minutes against Sevilla continued his impressive trend of scoring on his Champions League debut for different clubs, having also achieved the feat with Salzburg and Dortmund.
As a result, Haaland became only the fourth player in Champions League history to score in his first appearance for three different teams (Salzburg, Dortmund and Man City), after Fernando Morientes, Javier Saviola and Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Taking to the Premier League by storm
After scoring twice on the opening weekend of the new Premier League season against West Ham, Haaland surprisingly drew a blank in front of goal in a 4-0 win over Bournemouth, but this proved to be his only minor scoring blip as he netted a further seven times in his next three league fixtures against Newcastle United, Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest.
Haaland scored a total of nine goals in his first five Premier League games, becoming the first player in the division's history to achieve this feat and surpassing the previous record held jointly by Sergio Aguero and former Coventry City striker Micky Quinn.
In addition, the Norwegian scored his first nine goals from just 105 touches, netting on average once every 12 touches, which is the fewest touches per goal by any player to have scored at least three times in a Premier League season since records began in the 2003-04 campaign.
During this run, Haaland scored back-to-back hat-tricks at the Etihad against Palace and Forest. In doing so, the striker took the match-ball home in two of his first five Premier League matches, setting another record for the fewest games to score two hat-tricks in the competition, which was previously held by Demba Ba who scored two trebles in his opening 21 Premier League fixtures.
After claiming August's Premier League Player of the Month award, Haaland continued his scoring spree with strikes away from home against Aston Villa and Wolverhampton Wanderers. Including his earlier goals on the road against West Ham and Newcastle, Haaland became the first player in Premier League history to score in each of his first four away matches in the competition.
Haaland also became the fastest Premier League player to reach the 10-goal milestone, doing so after only six appearances, as well as the quickest to score 11 times, with the Norwegian reaching this tally after only seven games.
Hat-trick hero on the biggest occasion
Haaland's hunger to score goals has been evident and two hat-tricks were seemingly not enough for City's summer signing, who scored another memorable treble in their emphatic 6-3 victory against arch rivals Manchester United last weekend, subsequently setting eight new records in the process.
Man City's No.9 is the only player in Premier League history to have scored a hat-trick in three successive home matches. He also became the first City player to score three goals in a Premier League Manchester derby and just the third in the top flight after Horace Barnes back in October 1921 and Francis Lee in December 1970 – Haaland's teammate Phil Foden then became the fourth player a mere 10 minutes later.
The Norwegian's treble-treble has seen him demolish Michael Owen's previous record set 24 years ago of being the fastest player to score three Premier League hat-tricks. While Owen required 48 matches to score three hat-tricks, Haaland needed only eight games. The likes of Ruud van Nistelrooy (59 games), Fernando Torres (64 games), Andy Cole (65 games) and Luis Suarez (71 games) are all some way back on this list.
Haaland has remarkably smashed all these records at the age of only 22 years and 73 days, and his first goal against United made him the second-youngest Man City player to score in his first Manchester derby in the Premier League, after Mario Balotelli in the famous 6-1 Old Trafford triumph in October 2011 (21 years and 72 days).
The 6ft 5in striker went on to contribute to five goals (three goals and two assists) in City's win over the Red Devils, the most goal involvements by a Premier League player in a single Manchester derby, with City's 6-3 victory the highest-scoring Manchester derby of all time. He is also the youngest player to be directly involved in five goals in a single Premier League game.
Furthermore, with both Haaland and Foden taking home a match-ball, Guardiola's side became only the third team in Premier League history to have two players score hat-tricks in the same game – this feat has only previously been achieved by Jermaine Pennant and Robert Pires in Arsenal's 6-1 win at home against Southampton in May 2003, and Ayoze Perez and Jamie Vardy in Leicester City's 9-0 away victory against the Saints in October 2019.
Goals galore in the Champions League
Prior to his impressive treble against Man United, Haaland was also tearing up the record books in the Champions League, a competition which still alludes the Citizens but one they now have genuine hope of succeeding in with their new Norwegian number nine leading the line.
The striker's second goal in the aforementioned win over Sevilla on his City debut in the competition saw him become the fastest player to reach the 25-goal milestone, doing so after only 20 games – Haaland had previously scored eight goals in six games for Salzburg and 15 goals in 13 matches for Dortmund.
In comparison, Lionel Messi scored only eight goals in his first 20 Champions League games, while the competition's all-time leading scorer Cristiano Ronaldo failed to find the net in his opening 20 matches.
Haaland's second strike against Sevilla also saw him become the youngest player (22 years and 47 days) to score 25 Champions League goals, breaking the previous record held by Kylian Mbappe (22 years and 80 days).
Just eight days after netting twice in Seville, Haaland scored with an outrageous acrobatic effort against his former club Dortmund to help City come from behind to win 2-1 at the Etihad in September. The Norwegian is now the youngest player to have scored both for and against the same team in the Champions League.
Haaland has scored a total of 26 goals in just 21 Champions League games, and he boasts the best minute-per-goal ratio for any player in the competition to have scored at least 25 times. The striker's average of a goal every 61 minutes is some way clear of Mario Gomez in second place on the list with a ratio of 102 minutes per goal. Robert Lewandowski (103 minutes) and Lionel Messi (104 minutes) sit marginally further back.
Any records still left for Haaland to break?
Haaland has scored 14 Premier League goals in just eight games so far this season, twice as many as his nearest challenger Harry Kane in second place. The 22-year-old has three hat-tricks to his name and he is just two behind Alan Shearer's record of five trebles in a single Premier League season, while Sergio Aguero holds the record of 12 hat-tricks in total.
Man City's No.9 could end the season with the most goals scored in a debut Premier League season, with Kevin Phillips currently holding this title after netting 30 times for Sunderland in the in the 1999-2000 campaign. Haaland will also look to score the most goals in a single month in the Premier League – the striker came close with nine strikes in September, falling just one short of Luiz Suarez's record of 10 goals in December 2013.
Haaland is currently averaging 1.89 goals per 90 minutes in the Premier League and if he were to play in every minute in the top flight with his current strike rate for the remainder of this season, he would be on course to score a staggering 71 goals. Mohamed Salah currently holds the all-time Golden Boot record in a 38-game season with 32 goals, while both Alan Shearer and Andy Cole share top spot with 34 goals in a 42-game season.
In addition, if Haaland were to maintain his current strike rate and minutes played across all competitions for the rest of the season, he would end the campaign with 95 goals, and if he played every minute in all tournaments at his current strike rate he would finish with a mind-boggling 102 goals.
In the Champions League, Haaland will need to score another 14 goals if he is to match Cristiano Ronaldo's record of 17 strikes in a single campaign. Only 36 players have scored more than Haaland in Champions League history and the striker has played in just 21 games.
The Norwegian needs to score 11 more goals to surpass Sergio Aguero as City's all-time scorer in the Champions League, while he is currently 24 goals away from becoming the eighth player in the competition's history to reach the 50-goal milestone.
Haaland still has plenty of catching up to do if he wishes to top the Champions League scoring charts altogether, with Cristiano Ronaldo currently leading the way with 140 goals after 183 appearances, while Lionel Messi is second on the list with 126 goals from 158 games.
body check tags ::
