Manchester City striker Erling Haaland scored twice in the 4-1 obliteration of Southampton this weekend to take his tally to 44 goals in 38 games this season, which led manager Pep Guardiola to compare the 22-year-old directly with two indisputable luminaries in Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
“In terms of the thesis of scoring goals. He’s quite similar in terms of Cristiano, but Messi is the more complete player,” Guardiola told reporters after watching Haaland open the scoring against the Saints before doubling his haul with a spectacular overhead kick. “Messi can play wherever, while Cristiano and Erling are machines.”
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After arriving for €60 million from Borussia Dortmund in the summer, Haaland has now scored 30 goals in 27 Premier League games for City and is just four goals shy of the league’s all-time single-season goal record — held jointly by Andy Cole and Alan Shearer who both scored 34 goals in 1993-94 and 1994-95 respectively, both of which were 42-game campaigns.
Only two other players have scored 30 or more goals in their maiden season in the Premier League, with Cole netting 34 for Newcastle in 1993-94 and Sunderland striker Kevin Phillips bagging 30 in 1999-00.
Of course it would be remiss to reduce three great, multi-faceted players to mere stats but the numbers do suggest that Haaland is on course to match his rivals in terms of sheer output as his career progresses.
As things stand, the Norway striker has played 220 senior competitive club games in all competitions and scored 179 goals — that’s an average rate of 0.81 goals per game (gpg).
