Erling Haaland has nine goals in four Premier League games. That puts him on pace to score… 85 by the time all is said and done in May.
Extrapolating early-season stats out across an entire campaign should come with a hefty health warning. That Haaland will not score 85 league goals this season is an even safer bet than him collecting his third straight Golden Boot.
But statistical anomalies exist. And if the Premier League has ever known a player who could be described as an outlier, an exception, a freak, then here he is.
9 – Erling Haaland has scored nine goals across Manchester City’s first four league games this season – the most of any player in the opening four matchdays of a Premier League campaign (overtaking Wayne Rooney in 2011-12 – eight in first four). Unstoppable. pic.twitter.com/K7uawybPIF
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) September 14, 2024
To see why, take one step back from those nine goals. They have come from 20 shots — no player has taken more in this season’s Premier League. You do not need a calculator to work out that means he has scored with almost every other shot he has taken. As can be seen from his rolling expected goals (xG) chart below, he is overperforming in front of goal based on the quality of chances he has received after a dip at the end of last season.
But that conversion rate would be even more impressive if the latter stages of Manchester City’s 2-1 win over Brentford had not turned into an ultimately failed attempt for Haaland to score his 100th in all competitions for the club and his third consecutive hat-trick, a milestone not managed since the Truman Doctrine and the formation of the UK’s National Health System.
Defenders are as desperate to find new ways of stopping him as journalists are of finding new ways to illustrate his brilliance. Maybe drilling down into each of those 20 attempts at goal could help us all out…
Haaland’s first effort of the season ended in the back of Chelsea’s net. After taking a touch to set himself with his right, Haaland carried the ball deep into the penalty area, daring Robert Sanchez to come and smother it, then clipped a reverse finish past the Chelsea goalkeeper once he committed himself.
It was the most un-Haaland of his nine goals and 20 shots. Manipulating and carrying the ball in tight spaces is not usually his game. It was an unpredictable goal from a predictable source of goals. But just because his finishes tend to follow patterns does not mean they are any simpler to stop.
The penalty that sent him on his way to a hat-trick against Ipswich Town was driven low and hard into the left-hand corner. Look over his 51 career penalties outside of shootouts and you will notice it is a side and a method he has often favoured, with power as important as placement.
It’s not all about velocity, though. His second that day — from his second shot — was far more delicate. After deftly nodding the ball past the onrushing Arijanet Muric, he still had work to do. Tom Greaves was half-covering the narrowing angle between Haaland and an open goal but a cushioned finish arced the ball away from the defender and in.
That technique is not all too dissimilar from the clipped finishes that he prefers when bearing down on a goalkeeper after breaking in behind, such as when he went through for his first and his third in the 3-1 win away to West Ham United last month, or for his second against Brentford.
If you want to stop Haaland, or at least keep his conversion rate down, restrict him to headed attempts. His aerial ability has typically been considered his one area of weakness, especially for such a physically imposing player.
Take his first attempt at West Ham, when Bernardo Silva’s floated cross to the far post sat up nicely for an unmarked Haaland. He headed high, wide and not so handsomely.
Haaland has not scored from any of his four headed attempts this season but aside from that chance at the London Stadium, it is hard to see what more he could have done. They were either speculative nods towards goal when it was difficult to generate any power but, in the case of one attempt against Ipswich, he forced an eye-catching save.
Of his 58 headed shots during his Premier League career, he has scored 11. Given headed chances are typically more difficult to convert than those with the feet, scoring with almost one in five hardly makes it an Achilles’ heel.
Make no mistake though, Haaland is at his most deadly when the ball is on the ground. If afforded the time and space, he will happily take an extra touch to set himself, just as he did for his third against Ipswich before rifling a low, hard shot past Muric at the near post.
It was similar for the most aesthetically pleasing attempt — and goal — of his 2024-25 collection, except his second against West Ham was placed high past a helpless Alphonse Areola. There was another late on against Brentford, the touch helping him turn away from trouble, but goalkeeper Mark Flekken was equal to it.
But even if you shut him down and close off the space, one touch is often enough. That was the case for his first against Brentford and in the frantic search for a third, he had two first-time shots in the space of four seconds — the first rebounding agonisingly off the post, the second on its way in before hitting Brentford’s Nathan Collins.
Haaland’s eagerness for another hat-trick was understandable on Saturday, even when putting his previous two and the prospect of hitting triple figures for City to one side.
His week was marked by the passing of Ivar Eggja, the right-hand man — and best man — to his father Alfie and a key figure in Haaland’s camp.
Eggja was responsible for managing many of Haaland’s commercial engagements but also made sure Haaland felt at home in Manchester, helping him find an apartment as he had done in Dortmund before. He left an impression on the rest of the City squad too, who organised for a wreath to be delivered to the Haaland family’s box at the Etihad on Saturday.
City were willing to grant Haaland compassionate leave if he felt he needed it but Guardiola said in his post-match press conference that he always assumed he would play and that it would have been up to the 24-year-old to tell him otherwise.
There was ultimately no hat-trick to commemorate the man Haaland affectionately called ‘uncle’ but there will doubtless be many more in the future, each a fitting tribute to the phenomenon that Eggja’s guidance helped create.
(Top photo: Neal Simpson/Sportsphoto/Allstar via Getty Images)
