Erling Haaland’s Manchester City Specials

Manchester City are on course to win their fourth Premier League title in five seasons under Pep Guardiola, and with the addition of Erling Haaland, they are red hot favourites to win England’s top-flight title yet again next season.

Haaland will have some heavy competition for the Golden Boot and will ultimately have to settle in quick if he is to claim it in his first campaign. At Dortmund, the 21-year-old Leeds-born striker scored 86 goals in 89 matches and will be determined to carry his world-class reputation across to the Etihad Stadium.

This season, City thrashed United home and away in the Premier League, demolishing the Red Devils 4-1 at the Etihad Stadium, as well as comfortably beating them 2-0 at Old Trafford with United managing just one shot on target and 32% possession.

In truth, both scorelines flattered United who were abysmal on both occasions and could have easily conceded more, as they did against Liverpool when they leaked nine goals.

With Haaland’s goalscoring record at Dortmund being so strong, whilst the Red Devils have eclipsed their record for the most goals conceded in a single Premier League campaign, leaking 56 in 37 matches so far.

This season, the likes of Salah managed to score five goals against United across both fixtures. Haaland is priced at 33/1 to achieve the same feat as the Egyptian.

Haaland has three Golden Boots to his name, having finished as the top scorer of the U-20 World Cup in 2018/19 with nine goals, as well as the Champions League’s top scorer with 10 goals in 2020/21, on top of his UEFA Nations League B top scorer accolade last season.

The 21-year-old would have significantly more top scorer awards if he wasn’t competing up against Robert Lewandowski in a more functional Bayern Munich team in the Bundesliga.

The record amount of Premier League goals scored in a season under the 20 team format is held by Mohamed Salah who managed this feat in the 2017/18 season by finding the back of the net 32 times in 36 appearances.

Haaland’s best league season at the Signal Iduna Park was in 2020/21 where he scored 27 goals in 28 matches, a mere 10 games shy of the possible league fixtures that he could appear in next season for City. What also must be taken note of is that the Bundesliga is a 34 game season providing that your club doesn’t enter the relegation play-out.

As mentioned above, there are plenty of possibilities that Haaland will walk away with the Golden Boot next season if he replicates his form at Dortmund when he moves to the blue side of Manchester.

Something that could give Haaland an advantage in the race for the Golden Boot is the fact that Norway failed to qualify for the World Cup in Qatar, potentially meaning that he will be fresh coming into the second half of the season.

City are on course to win four of the last five Premier League titles ahead of Sunday’s title decider against Aston Villa at the Etihad Stadium. If Pep Guardiola’s side were to look weaker next campaign with Haaland in their side it would be a major shock considering that they have played without a striker on a regular basis for two seasons in a row.

The Champions League is a trophy that has eluded City’s grasp in recent seasons, having been beaten finalists in 2020/21 to Chelsea, as well as being knocked out in the semi-finals this campaign to Real Madrid.

It feels like it should be a matter of time before City claim European football’s biggest prize having come so close in recent years. Surely, the signing of Haaland will propel the Sky Blues to win their first-ever Champions League.

No team in English football history is yet to win the quadruple, with Liverpool’s current squad arguably the closest of them all to achieve this feat.

Meanwhile, Manchester City managed to win the Premier League, League Cup and FA Cup in the 2018/19 campaign, on top of the Community Shield. At present, they are the only team to have won this kind of domestic treble in England. Having persistently strengthened their side on a regular basis, could they become the first team in England to win the quadruple? Unless of course, Liverpool manages to do it within the next couple of weeks.