The records that floppy Erling Haaland won’t be able to break this season for Manchester City
Erling Haaland has scored goals and set records with indiscriminate brilliance for Manchester City this season, but some landmarks are out of even his reach.
Yet another record fell for Haaland when he scored his 35th goal of the Premier League season to help secure an important win against West Ham.
The Norwegian now has the most goals of any player in a single Premier League season, and the list of records he has broken this campaign is stunning.
But as good as he is, these single-season records won’t be part of his collection for one reason or another.
Most consecutive games scored in
Haaland has embarked on two lengthy consecutive scoring runs in the Premier League this season, netting in seven successive games between August and October before starting his current sequence of six fixtures in March. But even if the Norwegian nets in each of Manchester City’s remaining games against Leeds, Everton, Chelsea and Brighton, it won’t be enough to beat Jamie Vardy’s mark of 11, set in November 2015.
It would, however, give him quite the incentive to start next campaign with a bang.
Most goals in an English top-flight league season
The record for goals in a Premier League season has fallen but football apparently didn’t start in 1992 and, limiting it just to top scorers in a campaign, 18 players have plundered more than Haaland’s 35 in an English top-flight league season.
That ranges from Tottenham’s Bobby Smith, who scored 36 in 1957/58, to the eight who breached the 40-mark: Jimmy Greaves (41 in 1960/61), Vic Watson (41 in 1929/30), Ted Drake (42 in 1934/35), Dave Halliday (43 in 1928/29), Ted Harper (43 in 1925/26), Dixie Dean (44 in 1931/32), Tom Waring (49 in 1930/31) and Dean again (60 in 1927/28).
Haaland could catch a few of those names and usurp a few in between, but Everton legend Dean is under no threat.
Most headed goals
Harry Kane is already ahead – fantastic – of Haaland for Premier League goals with the noggin this season. The Tottenham forward has nine headed goals this season, with his Manchester City counterpart nodding six past opposition keepers.
Kane only jointly holds the current record along with Duncan Ferguson. Those are two very different strikers, as evidenced by the fact that Kane’s percentage of headed goals this season is 36%, compared to Big Dunc’s 81.8% (9 of 11) for Everton in 1997/98.
Most penalty goals
There is a vague chance that Haaland could pull level with Andy Johnson, who converted 11 spot kicks in vain for relegated Crystal Palace in 2004/05. The Norwegian is on seven so needs an average of a penalty a game, while maintaining his perfect record from 12 yards, to catch up.
Johnson took enough penalties in his record-setting campaign to miss two and still set the mark. Shaka Hislop and Dean Kiely managed to keep him out.
READ MORE: The ridiculous stats of Erling Haaland: New Premier League record with Dixie Dean in sight
Most Player of the Month awards
After supplementing back-to-back hat-tricks at home to Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest with a handful of goals elsewhere against West Ham and Newcastle, Haaland was a straightforward vote for August’s Player of the Month award.
But that remains his only such individual gong. Miguel Almiron, Martin Odegaard and Bukayo Saka have claimed a few of the others, while Marcus Rashford won in September, January and February to match Mo Salah (2017/18) for most Player of the Month awards in a single season.
Rashford has 16 goals so far this campaign; Haaland reached that figure by the 22nd minute of his 11th game, back in October. Bit weird, really.
Most goals against one team
There is frustratingly little to go off with much certainty here, but Alan Shearer, Jermain Defoe and Sergio Aguero all backed up their five-goal performances with another strike against the same team in the same season. The record is thus at least six, meaning Haaland needs five goals against Sam Allardyce’s Leeds, six at Everton, seven against Chelsea or five at Brighton to beat that.
A guard of honour for the man of the moment 💙
🌟 Erling Haaland 🌟 pic.twitter.com/VzDxYOZ3ad
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) May 3, 2023
Most goals in Europe’s top five leagues
With 35 goals in the Premier League, Haaland can turn his attention to surpassing the best goalscoring seasons in the rest of Europe’s top five leagues.
Serie A would be next, with the 36 goals scored by Gonzalo Higuain (2015/16) and Ciro Immobile (2019/20) almost certain to fall. After that, Haaland could exact a measure of revenge on Robert Lewandowski, who scored 41 times in the 2020/21 Bundesliga to put the then-Borussia Dortmund forward in his place.
The best season of Ligue Un scoring could potentially be out of reach. Josip Skoblar netted 44 times for Marseille in 1970/71. As for La Liga, Haaland surely has no chance of matching Lionel Messi’s 50 goals for Pep Guardiola‘s Barcelona in 2011/12.
Most home and away goals in a Premier League season
Haaland has 22 Premier League goals at the Etihad this season, with the other 13 coming on the road. The record for home goals in a single Premier League season is still held by Alan Shearer, with 25 for Blackburn in 1994/95, while Kevin Phillips set the other bar with 16 away goals for Sunderland in 1999/2000.
Haaland could perhaps get one – he has two games each home and away to make up a deficit of three goals – but he won’t make both his own. He probably will, though. He’s quite good.
