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Erling Haaland emulates 92-year goal record after netting 50th of the season
Erling Haaland scored his 50th goal for Manchester City this season, which also happened to be his 34th Premier League goal in his rookie season, with a single sweep of his menacing left foot.
With his injury-time goal against Arsenal in the middle of the week, Haaland had already broken the mark of 32 goals previously held by Mohamed Salah (2017/18) in a 38-game Premier League season.
The linseed-coloured In the next game on Sunday afternoon between Manchester City and Fulham, the Norwegian needed less than three minutes to slam a low penalty past Bernd Leno.
Before Haaland even officially joined Manchester City last summer, he had already quickly scribbled over the numbers. The 22-year-old was measured at a height of 195.2m while undergoing his physical as part of a £51 million deal from Borussia Dortmund.
“Oh wow, I’ve grown,” Haaland gasped while reclining on a bed in the treatment room, “almost one centimetre!”
The advantage of a 42-game league season allowed Andrew Cole (although he was known as Andy at the time) and Alan Shearer to score 34 goals. For Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle United, Cole looted his gluttonous haul in 1993–94. As is frequently forgotten in the mists of time, Cole also finished the year as the Premier League’s top assist producer.
Shearer equaled that total a year later when Blackburn Rovers won the Premier League. Shearer played every game of the season, missing just eight minutes in the whole course of his career, making it the only league season of his career in which he did so.
In addition to having fewer games to equal Shearer’s joint record due to the division’s subsequent restructure, Haaland has only made 30 appearances this season due to a few minor ailments.
In the Premier League’s three-decade history, 25 teams made their first 30 appearances in the league with fewer than 34 goals scored.
When a player’s goalscoring production is compared to whole clubs, he has undoubtedly surpassed the limitations of the Premier League era today.
Yet, even when taking into consideration the entire history of English top-flight football, Haaland can only be bettered by less than a handful.
By taking his tally to half a century across all competitions, Haaland became the first player in 92 years to score 50 goals in a single season for a club at the top of the English pyramid.
Aston Villa’s Tom ‘Pongo’ Waring notched up exactly 50 during the 1930/31 campaign. Waring was plying his trade during a historic stretch of scoring form for English goalscorers. Just the year before, West Ham’s legendary Vic Watson also hit 50 goals across all competitions and, of course, in 1928, Dixie Dean cemented his status in the annals of English football with a scarcely believable 63 strikes.
Even Haaland’s extraordinary goal-gobbling wasn’t going to match Dean’s obscene total of 60 goals in the English top tier alone.
In reality, no less than 36 players scored 35 or more league goals in a single football season prior to the creation of the Premier League.
Six league games remain in the competition between Manchester City and Haaland for the title. Haaland has a minimum of nine more games to add to his record and go as near to Dean’s 63 as he can. Guardiola’s team also has an FA Cup final against Manchester United and at least two more Champions League games against Real Madrid in the competition’s semi-finals to play.