 "Manchester City's Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring his team's opening goal in their Premier League home fixture against Arsenal at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester. Reuters")
Erling Haaland continued his red-hot form at the start of the 2024-25 season by scoring the opening goal of Sunday’s blockbuster Premier League fixture between Manchester City and Arsenal at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester.
By scoring the opening goal of City’s home game against the Gunners, the Norwegian striker completed a century of goals in just his 105th appearance for the eight-time Premier League champions.
Haaland thus equalled the legendary Cristiano Ronaldo’s record of being the fastest player to reach the 100-goal milestone for a single club.
Haaland, who has been nominated for the Ballon d’Or award for the best football player in the world this year, has been in outstanding form this season with his latest goal taking his total for the campaign to 10 in all competitions.
Haaland thus also became the fastest player in Premier League history to reach double figures in a season.
He was the joint-fastest to the milestone with Mick Quinn, who had taken six games to reach the 10-goal mark while representing Coventry City in 1992-93.
He has topped the league scoring charts in each of his two seasons at City since joining from Borussia Dortmund for $63 million in 2022.
Haaland’s record is even more impressive considering it was achieved in 100 starts for the club.
Haaland opened the scoring in the ninth minute at Etihad Stadium when running through on goal and firing past Arsenal goalkeeper David Raya.
Arsenal, however, fired back later in the first half, with Riccardo Calafiori helping Mikel Arteta’s men draw level in the 22nd minute and Gabriel Magalhães helping them take the lead with a stoppage-time header.
At half-time, the visitors were leading 2-1, though they were reduced to 10 men after Leandro Trossard was shown a second yellow card shortly after Arsenal’s second goal.
With inputs from AP