They said he could do it only in the Bundesliga, in a “Farmers League”. But, Manchester City striker Erling Haaland has set the Premier League ablaze with his goalscoring prowess. The Norwegian scored his second consecutive hat-trick of the league season as the Cityzens fired 6 goals past a hapless Nottingham Forest team on Wednesday night.
Into only his first 5 games of the English top-flight, Haaland has a whopping 9 goals to his name. 6 of these 9 goals have come via hat-trick. In fact, rumours in the English media are afloat that rival teams’ managers are calling each other in order to find out a way of stopping the free-scoring forward.
Be it pace, control on the ball, strength or finishing ability, Haaland virtually has all the traits one requires in a classical No. 9. As Haaland struck thrice within the first 38 minutes against Forest, he shattered a few Premier League records.
- Erling has scored nine goals after five Premier League appearances which is a new competition record. He surpassed Mick Quinn and Sergio Agüero both of whom had scored 8 goals each in their first 5 games.
- The 22-year-old Haaland scored 9 goals in August itself, breaking the record for goals scored in that month.
- Until Haaland’s treble against Forest, nobody had scored two Premier League hat-tricks in less than 21 matches. The Manchester City man did it in five.
In fact, Haaland has only taken 101 touches of the football to score his 9 goals. The numbers explain that the striker doesn’t even need much possession to unleash himself fully.
The buzz around Haaland’s stunning start to the Premier League has already garnered the attention of some of the biggest names in English football. Even the great Gary Linekar feels that Haaland will break Alan Shearer’s record before Tottenham Hotspur’s Harry Kane.
“What he [Haaland] has done in Norway, Austria, Germany he has started to do here. He is talented, we knew it and today we saw Julian as well. We have two incredible strikers with an incredible sense to score goals,” said Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola on the forwards’ exemplary start.
“Sergio [Aguero] is the legend. Nobody can break the position in the hearts of #ManCity fans, scoring the most important goal in the modern history. Erling [Haaland] has the quality to be there. What Sergio has done is amazing. But Erling has this talent,” he further said.
Before Haaland had joined Manchester City, Alan Shearer had said that the Norwegian would score 40 goals in the Premier League campaign if he joined the Cityzens. With just 5 games in, Haaland is close to completing a quarter of that record.
