Erling Braut Haaland has broken two fresh Premier League records after scoring a hat-trick in Manchester City's 3-0 win at home against Wolverhampton Wanderers on Sunday.
The Norwegian netted each of his previous three City hat-tricks at the Etihad Stadium earlier this season against Crystal Palace, Nottingham Forest and Manchester United respectively, becoming the first player in Premier League history to score three successive home hat-tricks.
Haaland has now taken his hat-trick tally to four after scoring all three goals in a comfortable victory over Wolves to help Pep Guardiola's side move to within two points of league leaders Arsenal, who face Man United on Sunday afternoon.
City's No.9 opened the scoring five minutes before half time, pouncing on a Kevin De Bruyne cross to head past Jose Sa from inside the six-yard box.
Haaland then added a second from the penalty spot five minutes after the interval after Ilkay Gundogan was clipped by Ruben Neves, before a costly mistake from Sa allowed Riyad Mahrez to set up his Norwegian teammate to tuck away a simple finish and complete his hat-trick in the 54th minute.
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Haaland has now taken his overall goal tally to 25 in the Premier League, including 18 strikes at the Etihad Stadium, which is more than any other Man City player has managed in a single season.
The 22-year-old has also become the fastest player in Premier League history to score four hat-tricks in the competition, doing so after just 19 matches – surpassing the previous record set by former Man United striker Ruud van Nistelrooy (65 games).
To put Haaland's feat into contest, City's No.9 has now scored as many Premier League hat-tricks as Yakubu, Kevin Campbell, Jermaine Defoe, Les Ferdinand, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Matt Le Tissier, Mohamed Salah, Teddy Sheringham, Chris Sutton, Carlos Tevez, Fernando Torres and Dwight Yorke, having played only 19 matches – Haaland has also scored more Premier League hat-tricks than Cristiano Ronaldo (three).
The Norwegian has now drawn level with Tottenham Hotspur's Harry Kane for the second-most hat-tricks in a single Premier League campaign (four), with only Alan Shearer having scored more trebles in the same campaign with five.
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In reaching the 25-goal milestone, Haaland has also surpassed the previous four winners of the Premier League Golden Boot.
Indeed, Salah and Son Heung-min both scored 23 goals last season, the same number as Harry Kane in 2020-21 and Jamie Vardy in 2019-20, while Salah, Sadio Mane and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang all shared the Golden Boot after scoring 22 goals each in 2018-19.
With 18 league games still remaining, Haaland is now just seven goals away from breaking Salah's all-time scoring record of 32 goals in a single 38-game Premier League season, while he is nine goals behind both Shearer and Andy Cole who scored 34 goals in a 42-game season.
Haaland will look to continue his scoring spree when Man City face Arsenal in the FA Cup fourth round next Friday, before travelling to North London on February 5 for a Premier League clash with Tottenham Hotspur, a side that the Norwegian scored against in a 4-2 home win last Thursday.
Oliver Thomas
