CNN
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Since joining Manchester City, Erling Haaland has broken one record after another and raised expectations for himself that seem impossible to fulfill.
And yet he has managed to continue breaking records this season, scoring nine goals in just four Premier League games – the most successful start to a season ever – and surpassing the previous record of eight goals set by Wayne Rooney.
Haaland has been so dominant this season that he has scored more goals than any other Premier League team except his own Manchester City, with a total of nine goals. And on Saturday, only the width of a goalpost prevented the Norwegian star from scoring an unprecedented hat-trick in three consecutive Premier League games.
And so he finished with a brace, helping Manchester City to a 2-1 win over Brentford and increasing his own goalscoring tally for the club to 99 in just 103 games.
His first goal came in the 19th minute when City were already trailing after Brentford had scored just 22 seconds into the game. His second came just before half-time when he outwitted the Bees defence, collected a long pass from goalkeeper Ederson and chipped the ball into the net.
This performance came after Haaland’s participation in the match was in doubt due to the death of a close family friend earlier in the week.
Haaland is already the fastest player to reach 50 Premier League goals, having done so in just 48 games – 17 faster than Andrew Cole’s previous record. Should he top the league’s goalscoring charts again this season, he would become the first player since Thierry Henry in 2006 to win three consecutive Golden Boot awards.
“He’s got that all-round combination: he’s very quick, he’s big, he’s strong. He’s very difficult to mark and he’s productive,” Lineker, a well-known BBC commentator and host of the podcast “The Rest Is Football,” told CNN Sport last month.
“He doesn’t worry about missing shots, which is one of the keys to scoring goals. He misses chances, but to be a really good goalscorer you have to miss a lot of chances because that means you get a lot of chances and you score a goal if you’re a good finisher, which he is.”
