Erling Haaland: Feet of Gold

 IN JUST A LITTLE over three seasons as a Premier League (PL) player, the unstoppable Erling Haaland scored his 100th goal in England’s top-flight football league during his club Manchester City’s 5-4 win over Ful­ham. In doing so, the Norwegian striker became the fastest to the three-figure landmark in PL history, having got there in just 111 appearances, which equates to an unthinkable rate of 0.9 goals per game.

This eclipsed the seemingly unbreakable benchmark set by the great Alan Shearer, who back in 1995 for Blackburn Rovers, had scored his 100th PL goal in his 124th game. That re­cord stood for 30 long years despite many prolific goal-scorers passing through the Premier League, until Haaland shaved the mark by 13 games earlier this week.

There’s been an inevitability to Haaland’s latest achieve­ment since he shored up at Manchester as a 22-year-old in August 2022. For, in his debut season itself in 2022-23, he smashed the long-standing single-PL season record by banging in 36 goals in just 33 appearances, two more than the record long held by who else but Shearer. That Golden Boot-earning performance led Haaland’s club to the title in his debut year, so he repeated both feats – most goals and silverware – in his second season as well.

With 15 goals in 14 games thus far this season, Haaland is well on his way to not only win his third Golden Boot but also pose a real threat to Shearer’s all-time Premier League record of 260 goals, given that the 25-year-old’s contract at City expires only in 2034.