Date published: Saturday 18th March 2023 7:21 – Dave Tickner
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!
We started to collate the astonishing stats that made Erling Haaland’s start to life in the Premier League utterly extraordinary a while ago. He renders it woefully and embarrassingly out of date every game so let’s just keep this updated as best we can.
Bear in mind that he has done all this despite famously barely bothering to touch the ball the rest of the time, which means he is also the only player in history to score goals roughly once an hour while also raising legitimate questions about whether he actually makes Man City worse.
Here are some of his Ridiculous Stats already…
* Haaland has become the first Premier League player in history about whom formerly-good football website Football365.com has started doing a Ridiculous Stats piece and then realised to their horror is going to have to be updated once a week. At least.
* Erling Haaland has 28 goals in his first 26 Premier League appearances – better than the best scoring Premier League seasons of Les Ferdinand (25 in 37, 1995/96), Ruud van Nistelrooy (25 in 34, 2002/03), Romelu Lukaku (25 in 37, 2016/17), Fernando Torres (24 in 33, 2007/08), Jamie Vardy (24 in 36, 2015/16), Emmanuel Adebayor (24 in 36, 2007/08), Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink (23 in 35, 2000/01 and 2001/02), Ian Wright (23 in 35, 1996/97), Frank Lampard (22 in 36, 2009/10), Sadio Mane (22 in 36, 2018/19), Teddy Sheringham (22 in 41, 1992/93), Dwight Yorke (20 in 32, 1999/2000), Dimitar Berbatov (20 in 32, 2010/11), Raheem Sterling (20 in 33, 2019/20), Michael Owen (19 in 29, 2001/02), Nicolas Anelka (19 in 37, 2008/09), Jermain Defoe (18 in 34, 2009/10) and Robbie Keane (16 in 36, 2005/06).
* Twenty-eight goals betters Sergio Aguero’s total return in any of his 10 Premier League campaigns with Manchester City.
* Twenty-eight goals betters Wayne Rooney’s total return in any of his 16 Premier League campaigns.
* There have only ever been 13 better goalscoring Premier League seasons, spread across 10 different players, than Erling Haaland’s uncompleted debut campaign thus far. The Norwegian has 11 games remaining to surpass the following: Alan Shearer (34 goals in 94/95, 31 goals in 95/96 and 31 goals in 93/94), Andy Cole (34 goals in 93/94), Mo Salah (32 goals in 17/18), Luis Suarez (31 goals in 13/14), Cristiano Ronaldo (31 goals in 07/08), Harry Kane (30 goals in 17/18, 29 goals in 16/17), Robin van Persie (30 goals in 11/12), Thierry Henry (30 goals in 03/04), Kevin Phillips (30 goals in 99/00) and Didier Drogba (29 goals in 09/10).
* Only two Premier League players have ever scored more goals in all competitions in a single season than Haaland’s 42 with Manchester City so far in 2022/23: Mo Salah (44 in 2017/18) and Ruud van Nistelrooy (44 in 2002/03).
* With 28 Premier League goals to his name, Haaland is eight goals clear of his nearest ‘challenger’ for the Golden Boot, with Harry Kane having managed only a feeble 20 (albeit record-breaking) goals so far. Haaland also finished second only to Kane on the list of top Premier League goalscorers for 2022 despite not making his debut in the competition until August.
* Despite having approximately zero chance of adding to his tally of Golden Boots, distant second Kane has himself already surpassed the Premier League’s top goalscorers from 1997/98, 1998/99, and 2008/09 with more than a quarter of the season still to play, and matched the winners from 2006/07 and 2010/11.
* Those 28 goals Haaland’s plundered in his first eight months in Our League are more than the career totals of Tammy Abraham, Nani, Victor Anichebe, Benjani, Roque Santa Cruz, Marcus Stewart, Mick Quinn, Stephane Sessegnon, Lomano Lua Lua, Tony Yeboah, Andrey Arshavin, Xherdan Shaqiri, Divock Origi, Mario Balotelli, Patrick Bamford, David Ginola, Michael Ricketts, Gianluca Vialli, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Michael Ballack, Erik Lamela, Alvaro Morata, Jose Antonio Reyes, Michy Batshuayi, Arjen Robben, Joe Allen, Fabio Borini, Demarai Gray, Odion Ighalo, Alex Iwobi, Robinho, Kai Havertz, Andre Schurrle, Luka Modric, David Platt, Gareth Southgate, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Edinson Cavani, Mousa Dembele, Samuel Eto’o, Dimitri Payet, Ademola Lookman, Harry Maguire, Emmanuel Petit, Granit Xhaka, Daniel Amokachi, Diego Forlan, Serhiy Rebrov, Andriy Shevchenko, Ronnie Rosenthal, Peter Beagrie, Gavin Peacock, Timo Werner, Jack Grealish, Luis Garcia and Alf-Inge Haaland.
* Southampton, Bournemouth, Everton, West Ham, Wolves, Nottingham Forest, Crystal Palace and actual Chelsea have all scored fewer Premier League goals this season than Haaland. He trails the combined efforts of his teammates 39-28.
* Those Haaland goals are currently coming along at a rate of one every 75 minutes. If he were to continue that rate and play every remaining minute of the league season (up to you which of these currently seems less likely…) he would end the season with 41 Premier League goals.
* By scoring nine goals in his first five Premier League games, Haaland finally knocked Micky Quinn’s name out of the record books. The former Coventry forward jointly held the previous record for most goals in his first five Premier League games with eight in the year football was invented. Sergio Aguero matched that in 2011/12.
* Haaland is already one of only six players to score back-to-back Premier League hat-tricks, but hasn’t yet matched Harry Kane in this particular field of excellence. Kane has not only done it twice, but did so in the same year (if not the same season) after scoring seven goals across the final two games of 2016/17 against Leicester and Hull before netting hat-tricks in successive games against Burnley and Southampton either side of Christmas Day seven months later. Hard as it is to credit, incidentally, that Boxing Day treble against Southampton in 2017 remains Kane’s most recent Premier League hat-trick.
* Four Premier League hat-tricks is already more than the career totals of Emmanuel Adebayor, Nicolas Anelka, Didier Drogba, Frank Lampard, Romelu Lukaku, Cristiano Ronaldo, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Heung-min Son, Jamie Vardy, Gareth Bale, Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane, Christian Benteke and Eden Hazard. He is now level with, deep breath, Yakubu, Kevin Campbell, Jermain Defoe, Les Ferdinand, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Matt Le Tissier, Mohamed Salah, Teddy Sheringham, Chris Sutton, Carlos Tevez, Fernando Torres and Dwight Yorke.
* Four Premier League hat-tricks in a single season is more than any player has managed bar Alan Shearer, who scored five for Blackburn in 1995/96.
* Haaland has also surpassed Dion Dublin’s three Premier League hat-tricks. But how many episodes of Homes Under the Hammer has Haaland presented? Exactly.
* Haaland’s four hat-tricks take Norway fifth above Spain on the list of countries to have produced the most Premier League trebles with 14, Haaland standing on the shoulders of such giants as Solskjaer, Steffen Iversen and Joshua King (two each), John Carew, Tore Andre Flo and Jan Age Fjortoft (one each). Argentina and Holland are joint-second with 18 and France are on 17, which frankly shouldn’t take too long to topple, but even Haaland will have to hang around a few years to knock England’s 161 hat-tricks off top spot.
* Haaland is the first player in the Premier League to score hat-tricks in three successive home games, and the first Manchester City player to score a Manchester derby hat-trick since 1970.
* Haaland is unsurprisingly the quickest player ever to reach three Premier League hat-tricks after getting there in eight(!) games. The previous record holder was Michael Owen, who managed it in a sluggish 48 games. Next best are Ruud van Nistelrooy (59 games), Fernando Torres (64) and Andy Cole (65).
* Haaland is also by definition the quickest player ever to reach four Premier League hat-tricks after getting there in 19(!) games. The previous record holder was Ruud van Nistelrooy, who managed it in a laborious 65 games. Next best are Luis Suarez (81), Alan Shearer (86) and Robbie Fowler (89).
* Haaland’s 27 Premier League goals have come from 86 shots and, even more ridiculously, 573 total touches. That’s a shot conversion rate of 33%, and a touch conversion rate of 5%. To be entirely clear about what we’re saying here: roughly one in six of Haaland’s touches is a shot, and one in 20 of Haaland’s touches is a goal.
* With five assists in the Premier League so far, we can add another layer of Haaland daftness there: 5.75% – about one in 17 – of Haaland’s touches produce a goal or an assist.
94:33 – At 94 minutes and 33 seconds, Erling Haaland’s penalty is Manchester City’s latest winning goal in the Premier League since November 2017 against Southampton, when Raheem Sterling scored on 95:04. Rescued. pic.twitter.com/EDeGqVrpp0
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) November 5, 2022
* The back-to-back hat-tricks against Palace and Forest came from a combined total of 32 touches.
* Haaland is the fastest player to ever score 25 goals under Pep Guardiola, doing so in 20 games to beat Lionel Messi (28), Samuel Eto’o (30), Sergio Aguero (35) and Thierry Henry (41).
* Haaland has already beaten the Premier League Golden Boot-winning goal totals of 1992/93, 1996/97, 1997/98, 1998/99, 2000/01, 2001/02, 2002/03, 2004/05, 2005/06, 2006/07, 2008/09, 2010/11, 2012/13, 2014/15, 2015/16, 2018/19, 2019/20, 2020/21 and 2021/22. Nineteen seasons have fallen and 11 remain.
* Haaland is now more than four-fifths of the way to breaking the record for most Premier League goals in a single season, jointly held by Andy Cole (1993/94) and Alan Shearer (1994/95) with 34 goals in 42-game campaigns.
* At his present 1.13 goals-per-game rate, Haaland would break Alan Shearer’s Premier League record of 260 goals in his 231st game.
* No player has scored more goals in a season for Manchester City than Haaland. Tommy Johnson’s mark of 38 goals stood since 1929 before Haaland broke it by mid-March of his debut campaign.
* Only 13 players have ever scored more goals under Pep Guardiola. Haaland’s 39 in 37 games is better than Mario Gotze (36 in 114), Samuel Eto’o (36 in 52), David Villa (32 in 76) and Thierry Henry (30 in 74).
* Haaland was both the fastest and youngest player to reach 20 Champions League goals, obliterating Harry Kane’s really quite impressive previous benchmark of 24 games by 10 when reaching the landmark in just 14 games for Salzburg and Dortmund. At 20 years and 231 days old, Haaland was over a year younger than previous record-holder Kylian Mbappe as the youngest player to reach 20 Champions League goals.
* Haaland was also the fastest and youngest player to reach 30 Champions League goals, reaching the mark in 25 games and thus shattering Ruud van Nistelrooy’s previous 34-match haul, while beating Kylian Mbappe by 116 days.
* Only Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo (both 8), Robert Lewandowski (6), Karim Benzema (4), Mario Gomez, Filippo Inzaghi, Luiz Adriano and Neymar (3) have scored more career Champions League hat-tricks than Haaland’s two.
* Haaland has as many European Cup goals (33) in 25 games as Fernando Morientes in 93.
* Only 23 players have ever scored more European Cup goals than Haaland. In the Champions League, that number is reduced to just 18.
* Haaland has more European Cup goals than Arjen Robben, Samuel Eto’o, Paco Gento, Antoine Griezmann, Kaka, Wayne Rooney, Patrick Kluivert, David Trezeguet, Ryan Giggs, Sadio Mane, Rivaldo, Luis Suarez and a couple of others.
* Haaland and Lionel Messi are the only players to score a first-half hat-trick in a Champions League knockout game.
* Haaland, Messi and Luiz Adriano are the only players to score five goals in a Champions League game.
* After just 23 caps, Haaland is joint eighth on the list of leading goalscorers for the Norway men’s national team with 21 goals (level with 79-cap legend Steffen Iversen) and needs just 13 more to overhaul Jorgen Juve’s benchmark of 33 which has stood since before World War Two.
* Haaland has scored 194 goals in 235 competitive career appearances.
Erling Haaland honours
Austrian Bundesliga: 2018/19, 2019/20
DFB-Pokal: 2020/21
Bundesliga Player of the Season: 2020/21
Bundesliga Player of the Month: January 2020, November 2020, April 2021, August 2021
Bundesliga Team of the Season: 2020/21, 2021/22
UEFA Champions League Squad of the Season: 2020/21
UEFA Champions League Forward of the Season: 2020/21
UEFA Champions League Top Goalscorer: 2020/21
UEFA Nations League Top Goalscorer: 2020/21
FIFA FIFPro World 11: 2021
Premier League Player of the Month: August 2022
Erling Haaland top-flight league goals record
Molde (Eliteserien) 2017-2018: 39 games, 14 goals
Red Bull Salzburg (Austrian Bundesliga) 2018-2020: 16 games, 17 goals
Borussia Dortmund (Bundesliga) 2020-2022: 67 games, 62 goals
Manchester City (Premier League) 2022-23: 26 games, 28 goals
Total: 147 games, 120 goals
Erling Haaland Champions League record
Red Bull Salzburg 2019-20: 6 games, 8 goals
Borussia Dortmund 2019-22: 13 games, 15 goals
Manchester City 2022: 6 games, 8 goals
Total: 25 games, 31 goals
Erling Haaland international record
Norway 2019-22: 23 games, 21 goals
