Erling Haaland’s stunning debut season as he scores record 45th goal of campaign

Erling Haaland set a new record for a Premier League player with his 45th goal of the season in all competitions as Manchester City beat Bayern Munich 3-0 in the Champions League on Tuesday night.

Haaland exceeded the record for the Premier League era, set 20 years ago by Manchester United striker Ruud Van Nistelrooy and matched in 2017-18 by Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah.

Here, the PA news agency looks at the Norway international’s stunning debut season in detail.

Record breaker

Haaland had already produced the first 30-goal top-flight season since Salah and Tottenham’s Harry Kane both achieved the feat five years ago and he now has half as many again in other competitions.

Tuesday’s close-range finish against Bayern was his 11th goal in seven appearances in Europe, taking his overall record in the competition to 34 in 26 games – already in the competition’s top 20 goalscorers.

In that list he is sandwiched between Edinson Cavani, whose 35 goals came in 70 appearances for Napoli, Paris St Germain and Manchester United, and Fernando Morientes who scored 33 in 93 for Real Madrid, Monaco, Liverpool and Valencia.

Haaland’s season tally also includes an FA Cup hat-trick in the 6-0 win over Burnley and a Carabao Cup goal against Liverpool, for a total of 45 in 39 matches.

Half-century in sight

There are a maximum of 15 games remaining for City this season – nine in the league, the second leg against Bayern followed by a likely semi-final over two legs and a possible final, and an FA Cup semi-final against Championship Sheffield United where they will be favourites to progress to the final.

With Haaland scoring more than a goal a game to this point, if he keeps up his season-long rate and plays every possible game, he could hit an astonishing 62 goals – within one of former Everton striker Dixie Dean’s all-time record of 63 in 1927-28.

He would bring up his half-century in another five games, potentially against Fulham at the end of April based on City’s current schedule – but his recent hot streak, even by his standards, raises the prospect of that magic landmark arriving even sooner.

Haaland has scored 11 goals in his last four games – five in the Champions League second leg against RB Leipzig, the hat-trick against Burnley, two league goals against Southampton and his one against Bayern – and has relegation-threatened Leicester next on his schedule, albeit with a new manager in the form of Dean Smith.

Haaland is two away from Salah’s record for a 38-game Premier League season and needs four to match the overall record set by Andy Cole and Alan Shearer in the early 42-game campaigns of the Premier League era, with both marks firmly in his sights in the remaining weeks of the season.