Manchester City are the Premier League’s hat-trick kings after Erling Haaland’s latest treble put the club top of the all-time charts.
City had been level with Liverpool on 42 hat-tricks, but Haaland’s exploits at West Ham nudged them ahead of their modern rivals.
After scoring three goals against Ipswich Town the weekend before, Haaland has managed back-to-back hat-tricks for the second time in his short City career and now has eight in the competition, in just 69 games.
But Sergio Aguero is still top of the pile — for both City and the Premier League itself. Aguero racked up 12 trebles in 275 appearances, and although his hat-tricks were spread across nine years, with his first coming in 2011 and last in 2020, seven of them were scored during Pep Guardiola’s reign.
Looking at those seven alone, his ratio is very similar to Haaland’s, because he got them in just 70 games.
The moral of the story is probably that if you give Guardiola a lethal finisher, he is going to get them in positions to score a lot of goals.
City have scored 27 of their 42 Premier League hat-tricks during Guardiola’s reign, with Aguero and Haaland contributing 15 between them. Raheem Sterling added four (plus one under Manuel Pellegrini), Phil Foden three, plus one apiece for Riyad Mahrez, Bernardo Silva, Gabriel Jesus, Ferran Torres and Kevin De Bruyne.
De Bruyne, who has assisted Aguero and Haaland for 32 of their league goals, outlined the two strikers’ particular strengths recently when asked by reporters if Haaland is the best striker he has ever played with.
“In the box, I’d say yes. All around, maybe Sergio, but it depends on what you talk about. Erling is the most prolific striker I’ve played with.”
Nobody would dispute that assessment, with Aguero having slightly more to his overall game, particularly in terms of long shots and dribbling, while Haaland is an even more ruthless finisher.
A look at their hat-tricks tells that story, too. The bulk of their goals within their respective hat-tricks are very similar, either close-range tap-ins or cool, one-vs-one finishes (and penalties), which again highlights the fact that they are playing in a team that is very good at creating those opportunities for its strikers.
Scattered among Aguero’s are some real blockbuster shots, such as the absolute screamer against Chelsea in February 2019, which came a week after he had scored three against Arsenal.
There was also this crossbar rattler against Leicester City, featuring an assist from a 17-year-old Phil Foden (this was actually Aguero’s fourth of the game but it is a fine example of the kind of goal he could score).
One of his most memorable goals sealed a hat-trick at Watford in 2017, after he dribbled past four players and squeezed the ball over the line from a tight angle.
With Haaland, the first four of his league hat-tricks, as well as the first two goals of his fifth hat-trick, were scored from 12 yards or closer.
Six of the first nine goals in that run were scored from inside the six-yard box. Only one goal from all of his hat-tricks combined has come from outside the box — the third against Ipswich this season — and even that was executed like a finish rather than a piledriver.
Other Haaland goals from outside the box have been very similar, where he passes the ball into the bottom corner as if it were a routine finish from closer range, such as at Wolverhampton Wanderers two seasons ago or at home against Brighton & Hove Albion last season.
If you were to design a ‘perfect’ hat-trick for the two men there would be some major similarities.
One of the three would have to be a penalty because they scored six of their hat-trick goals from the spot. Haaland’s effort would probably be the more emphatic.
The second would most likely be a tap-in from inside the six-yard box, because they both demonstrated the ability to be in the right place countless times, not just in their hat-tricks but with many of their other goals, too.
The third, if we are keeping things similar, could easily be a beautifully finished one-against-one with the goalkeeper.
Haaland scored this third goal against West Ham United in City’s most recent fixture…
Built different, @ErlingHaaland! 😤 pic.twitter.com/POgNAmt9sf
— Manchester City (@ManCity) August 31, 2024
… which is similar to the third of Aguero’s five goals against Newcastle in 2015.
And because both men have not gone on to score more than three in a game — Aguero scored two fours and a five in the league, Haaland scored four against Wolves (and five against RB Leipzig in the Champions League) — let’s allow them a fourth.
Both demonstrate their emphatic finishing here: Haaland showed with his second at the weekend, and with his fourth against Wolves last season, that he can rifle in a shot from inside the box.
The quintessential Aguero goal was probably an emphatic near-post finish from a fairly narrow angle, like the one at Old Trafford in 2013, or the title-decider against Queens Park Rangers in 2012.
In terms of goals that were part of his hat-tricks, however, perhaps this one against Aston Villa, which featured a couple of neat touches before an absolute lash from outside the box, would be a fitting fourth goal.
You could probably even add some minutes to Haaland’s ‘perfect’ hat-trick given there even seems to be a bit of a pattern to some of his trebles, or the several times when he has scored twice but been taken off before he could get a third.
While he has completed a league hat-trick in the same half on four occasions, there are times when he scores two in a first-half flurry and then wraps things up late on.
That may be recency bias, because against Ipswich and West Ham this season Haaland has got two inside 30 minutes and then scored his third in the final 10 minutes, which also happened against United two years ago, but there have been plenty of times when he has scored twice before the break, creating the sense of expectation around another hat-trick, only for Guardiola to take him off when City have a busy schedule.
That has happened five times in just over two Premier League seasons, with the best example probably coming in April 2023 when he scored two inside 25 minutes against Leicester and was taken off at half-time in preparation for City’s Champions League semi-final against Real Madrid.
It also happened when he was looking for a double hat-trick in the Champions League; after scoring five against Leipzig in 57 minutes, he was taken off five minutes later.
So Haaland’s quintessential hat-trick would probably consist of a 14th-minute penalty, a 28th-minute tap-in and a rifled finish with 15 minutes to go (about 45 seconds before he is substituted).
You could never quite put a finger on when Aguero would score, but as City’s all-time leading goalscorer and hat-trick king, you always knew you would not have to wait too long.
City fans can just count themselves fortunate they’ve seen both players scoring at generational rates for the club over the past 13 years.
(Top photos: Getty Images)
