Tom Ede: Haaland’s Hat-trick Heroics

FROM children being amazed at a magician producing a rabbit from nowhere, to Darren Gough rattling three consecutive Australian wickets, who doesn’t love a hat-trick? Erling Haaland certainly seems to, with Man City’s Norse god hammering more opponents than Thor so far this season. The 22-year-old has hit six trebles in all competitions this season – which is already the most by a Premier League player in a single campaign.

Overall, Premier League players have scored 11 hat-tricks in all competitions this season, meaning Haaland has scored more than every other player combined. On top of that, he’s the first ever player to score a Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup hat-trick in the same season. Going back pre-1992, the last player to achieve this for an English top-flight club was Liverpool’s John Wark in 1984-85.

6 – Erling Haaland has scored more hat-tricks in all competitions this season (6) than every other Premier League player combined (5).

6 – Erling Haaland
1 – Mohamed Salah
1 – Ivan Toney
1 – Son Heung-min
1 – Phil Foden
1 – Leandro Trossard

Gamebreaker. pic.twitter.com/zrgyztn42G

— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) March 18, 2023

All six of his hat-tricks have come at the Etihad Stadium. He’s played 19 home games with Man City this term, failing to score in five of them. That’s correct. He’s scored a hat-trick in more games than he’s failed to score in at home this season. The mind truly boggles.

3+ goals – 6 games
2 goals – 2 games
1 goal – 6 games
0 goals – 5 games

In his five domestic hat-tricks this season, Haaland has either had the decency to stop at three goals, or been subbed off to avoid inflicting further psychological damage, which you have to say is very considerate of Mr Guardiola. The exception was his European hat-trick against RB Leipzig, where he became the third player to score five goals in a single UEFA Champions League match. Oh, and was subbed off after 63 minutes to avoid inflicting further psychological damage.

Erling Haaland is the first player to score an English top-flight, FA Cup and European Cup/CL hat-trick in the same season since Liverpool's John Wark in 1984-85

— Tom Ede (@TomEde1) March 18, 2023

Overall, Haaland has scored 42 goals in all competitions, with only two Premier League players ever netting more in a single campaign (Ruud van Nistelrooy in 2002-03 and Mohamed Salah in 2017-18 both netting 44). But this is about hat-tricks. And even if you only counted the goals Haaland scored as part of a hat-trick this season, he would still be the fourth highest goalscorer of all Premier League players.

Such immense goalscoring prowess naturally invites comparisons. And in the 21^st century, the only possible goalscoring comparisons to be made are against Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. And he’s already just one away from equalling Messi’s best season, and two from Ronaldo’s best in terms of club trebles in a campaign.

Everyone knew the quality of goalscorer Man City were getting at the start of the season, but few could have predicted these returns. Indeed, he was practically in a crisis after failing to score in July’s Community Shield match against Liverpool. And who could forget the lashings he got when failing to register a touch in Tottenham’s penalty area in their 1-0 defeat in north London? The fact remains that in the Premier League alone he is averaging a hat-trick every six-and-a-half games. Obviously this will continue to change as his career progresses, but as it stands it absolutely smashes Fredi Bobic’s record.

His league hat-tricks for Manchester City have also come at important times for the team. His first one against Crystal Palace came when Manchester City were 2-0 down at half-time, helping them to a 4-2 victory. His second came just four days later, this time all in the first half to put Man City 3-0 up in what ended up being a 6-0 victory against Nottingham Forest. This meant that in his first five appearances, he’d become just the 7^th player to score hat-tricks in both the first half and the second half of a Premier League match, joining the legendary list of Nicolas Anelka, Andrew Cole, Alan Shearer, Chris Sutton, Carlos Tevez and Yakubu.

And if any accusations of “stat-padding” are about to be fired Haaland’s way, his next treble came in the small matter of the Manchester derby. He became just the third player to score a hat-trick for Man City against their rivals, while he even got two assists to help Phil Foden become the fourth player just nine minutes later.

Then came hat-tricks against Wolves, where he scored his third goal in the 54^th minute and was subbed off after 61, RB Leipzig (3^rd goal in 45^th minute, subbed off at 63) and Burnley (3^rd goal in the 59^th minute, subbed off at 63). The average minute of his third goal in his six hat-trick games is the 51^st minute, and he’s played an average of 72 minutes in these matches. Essentially if football matches were only an hour long, he’d still probably score just as many hat-tricks. Great news for defences around Europe I’m sure.

And just for one more bit of added context, Haaland’s six hat-tricks in 37 games for Man City is one more than Mohamed Salah has in 293 appearances for Liverpool. Which is in no way a slight on the King of the Kop.