It was one of the transfers that made a splash in May. Manchester City paid Dortmund a $60 million release clause and demanded Erling Haaland.

The Norwegian is one of the most productive strikers this season. For Dortmund, Haaland scored 86 goals in 89 league matches and provided three assists.

The first game she played in her jersey Manchester it was the Community Shield against Liverpool. The fact that his team was beaten and he was left without a goal has led some social media users to talk about a special “first encounter” with English football.

A few weeks later, the Norwegian striker broke all the posts. In the derby against rivals Manchester United, Erling Haaland scored three goals and scored his third consecutive hat-trick at home for the Citizens.

🏆RECORDER BREAKER

Erling Haaland becomes the first player in @Premier League history to score a hat-trick in 3 consecutive Premier League home games

Fastest players to score 3 hat-tricks in PL
E HAALAND 8️⃣ apps
M Owen 4️⃣8️⃣ apps
R Van Nistelrooy 5️⃣9️⃣ apps
F Torres 6️⃣4️⃣ apps
6️⃣5️⃣ Cole Apps pic.twitter.com/3BT1vcagex

— Sky Sports Stats (@SkySportsStatto) October 2, 2022

It took the 21-year-old footballer eight games to score three hat-tricks in the English league. Of course, now he also holds the corresponding record. In second place is Michael Owen, who scored three hat-tricks in 48 matches.

Haaland already has 14 goals in the English league. The only match in which he did not score was against Bournemouth on the second round. It is characteristic that 14 goals scored by him is more than 13 teams participating in the league. Chelsea scored 10 goals and Manchester United scored 11 in 7 games.

In fact, if he keeps scoring at the same rate, he could go up to 60 goals in the league – he scores one goal every 47.5 minutes of the match.

But even if we stay within the relative odds, it’s easy to see how Haaland ended the 2022/23 season with 60 goals or more.

He averages a Premier League goal every 47.5 minutes and spends an average of 83.1 minutes on the pitch in every league match.

👉 https://t.co/ZAY4FAFrbv pic.twitter.com/agbuHzkvn2

— FourFourTwo (@FourFourTwo) October 3, 2022

Alan Shearer’s 34 goals for Blackburn in 1995, and Andy Cole for Newcastle the year before, are the Premier League goalscoring record. The all-time record in the English league is held by Dixie Dean, who scored 60 goals for Everton in the 1927–1928 season.

The paradox is that Manchester City had no scoring problems during the years that Pep Guardiola was on the bench. The Citizens had the worst offensive record in the league in the Spaniard’s debut season with 80 goals. Last year they finished the year with 99 goals, and their best result was 106 goals in the 2017-2018 season.

Haaland’s high performance inevitably draws comparisons to Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. The Argentine, along with the Manchester United superstar, are the best players of our era and some of the best of all time.

But Haaland seems to be a refined model of a football player. In his career to date, the Norwegian has scored 172 goals at club level. 103 of them have been scored in his last 100 matches.

Erling Haaland has scored as many Premier League hat-tricks as Cristiano Ronaldo.

He played 8 games. 🤯 pic.twitter.com/Hqj6ugj2fn

— Football Daily (@footballdaily) October 2, 2022

By the time Messi was 22, according to the Mirror, he had scored 91 goals at club level. The Argentine started his career on the attacking wing with Samuel Eto’o and Thierry Henry ahead of him in his early years at Barcelona. The fact that he spent more than 15 years at the Catalan club helped him set almost every blue garnet record.

Cristiano Ronaldo in 2007, at the age of 22, finished second in voting for the Golden Ball after Kaka. After scoring 47 goals at club level, the Portuguese superstar won the best player award a year later.

The Portuguese superstar scored 816 goals, the Argentine scored 780 goals and Josef Bitsan scored 805 goals. Will Haaland be able to match or even surpass them?

The answer came from Pep Guardiola, who idolized the City striker. “He can become a better player [από τον Μέσι]. He has a desire to do it. He loves football, I have never seen a player at the age of 21 or 22 who is already ready, which means that he still has room to grow.