Erling Haaland: City hot-shot surpasses Salah record with 33rd Premier League goal

Erling Haaland records in focus

Erling Haaland surpassed Mohamed Salah’s record tally of 32 goals for a 38-game Premier League season with his late strike in Manchester City’s 4-1 win over Arsenal on Wednesday.

The Norway international has scored 49 goals in all competitions as we look at his stunning debut campaign in detail.

Premier League

Haaland now has 33 goals in the Premier League, surging past the benchmark set by Salah in his debut season at Liverpool in 2017-18.

With seven games left, the overall record of 34 – shared by Andy Cole and Alan Shearer in 42-game campaigns early in the Premier League era – is surely in line to fall as well.

He scored in seven straight league games from August to October – his third to his ninth appearances in the competition – with hat-tricks against Crystal Palace, Nottingham Forest and Manchester United helping him to 13 goals in those games and 18 in a 10-match scoring run in all competitions.

A fourth treble against Wolves in January left him one behind Shearer’s record of five in a season while he also has five doubles – against West Ham, Brighton, Leeds, Southampton and Leicester – and has scored in 19 of his 28 appearances.

Champions League

Haaland arrived in Manchester with 23 Champions League goals to his name in 19 appearances for RB Salzburg and Borussia Dortmund, and has more than maintained that form.

He netted group-stage doubles against Sevilla and FC Copenhagen, either side of a goal against Dortmund, and Pep Guardiola could afford to largely rest his star man for the return fixtures save for a scoreless first-half run-out on his old stomping ground in Germany.

He was quiet in a drawn first leg against RB Leipzig but more than made up for it in the return fixture, equalling the competition record of five goals in a game as City won 7-0 and 8-1 on aggregate.

Goals in both legs against Bayern Munich took him to a dozen for the European season, with an outside chance of threatening Cristiano Ronaldo’s record 17 for Real Madrid in 2013-14.

Domestic cups

Haaland’s first FA Cup goals came with a hat-trick in the 6-0 quarter-final win over Burnley, having sat out the clash with Chelsea and not scored against Arsenal.

He was shut out by Liverpool in the Community Shield – as well as in both league meetings – but scored against them in the Carabao Cup.

Dixie land?

There are a maximum of 11 games remaining for City this season – seven in the league, a Champions League semi-final over two legs and a possible final, and an FA Cup final.

With Haaland scoring more than a goal a game to this point, if he keeps up his season-long rate and plays every possible game, he could hit an astonishing 63 goals and match former Everton striker Dixie Dean’s all-time record for an English season in 1927-28.

His recent hot streak, even by his standards, raises the prospect of even more.

Haaland has scored 16 goals in his last nine games, including the Leipzig and Burnley games and league doubles against Southampton and Leicester.

Hat-trick heroics

Haaland has six hat-tricks this season in all competitions, one more than all other Premier League players combined.

All six have come at the Etihad Stadium, compared to just five games there in which he has failed to score.

Manchester City 4 Crystal Palace 2, August 27

Trailing 2-0 at half-time to a John Stones own goal and Joachim Andersen’s header, City pulled one back through Bernardo Silva before Haaland took centre stage with three goals in 20 minutes.

Manchester City 6 Nottingham Forest 0, August 31

Just four days later he put Forest to the sword with a perfect hat-trick, taking him to a record nine goals in his first five Premier League games.

Manchester City 6 Manchester United 3, October 2

Haaland and Phil Foden both scored hat-tricks as City savoured a derby success which was even more one-sided than the final scoreline appeared, after Anthony Martial’s late double for United. It was Haaland’s third treble in successive Premier League home games, interrupted by the international break.

Manchester City 3 Wolves 0, January 22

Three in 14 minutes either side of half-time took Haaland through the 30-goal mark for the season in all competitions and 25 in the league.

Manchester City 7 RB Leipzig 0, March 14

Haaland had recorded his second perfect hat-trick of the season by half-time and finished with five in a 35-minute spell before he was substituted with his night’s work well and truly done.

Manchester City 6 Burnley 0, March 18

Once again Haaland treated City’s home fans to two trebles inside a week, scoring twice in three first-half minutes and finishing the job just before the hour mark and earning a well-earned rest on the bench.