Erling Haaland letting his hair down was one of the defining pictures of a jubilant night as the striker’s golden mane trailed like flames from an engine as he happily rampaged about a crackling Etihad, accepting the adulation. Haaland and Manchester City put the title-aspirants Arsenal to the sword as they thumped the Gunners 4-1. But not in his usual, professional, one-touch finishing style.
Erling Haaland’s goal during the disbanding of the Gunners implies that the statistics continue to tick over nicely. That’s 49 goals in all competitions for the Norwegian, 33 in the Premier League, breaking Mohamed Salah’s record for 32 goals in a 38-game season – and Haaland could still have seven games left to play.
Erling Haaland continues to smash records at City
Erling Haaland will be wondering how he hasn’t already raised his boot to acknowledge a half-century after the number of chances he missed in the one-sided encounter against the Gunners. But this was a different kind of Haaland performance, and it may have been his most stunning contribution in a Manchester City shirt.
Simply put, Haaland gave Arsenal the nightmares they undoubtedly feared, and Rob Holding’s late goal was scant consolation for the defence after his ordeal. Haaland was unplayable for the majority of the game. Pep Guardiola deserves some of the credit, since it was clearly a tactical plan to occasionally go long and direct to the centre-forward in order to beat Arsenal’s strong press.
That is exactly what happened for the first goal, with Haaland coming in a little deeper to create space behind the centre halves for Kevin de Bruyne to sail into. The ex-Dortmund forward fought off Holding, went inside, set De Bruyne free, and the Belgian’s genius took care of the rest. It was the first of two assists supplied by Haaland for De Bruyne this season.
He finally got his record breaking goal late in the added time, when Phil Foden brilliantly controlled a headed clearance from John Stoned on the edge of the Arsenal penalty box and slid in the ball for the Norway international who had already made the run inside the box to slot home his 49th goal of the season, bringing his total goal contributions to 57 in 43 games in all competitions this season, 15 more than any other player in Europe’s top five leagues.
While Erling Haaland broke Salah’s record for most goals in a 38-game Premier League season, this was just one of the few records he had smashed in his debut season at the Etihad. With his quintet in the 7-0 win over RB Leipzig last month, Haaland broke City legend Tommy Johnson’s club record of 38 goals in a single season, which had held for 94 years. It is safe to say that no record is safe while Haaland drills in goals for the treble-chasing Cityzens.