Manchester City have monopolised football in recent seasons, buying some of Europe’s best talents as they have dominated the Premier League. It has certainly reaped the benefits.
The Citizens have won the Premier League in six out of the past seven years, with their four consecutive titles a new record. They also won their first Champions League back in 2022/23.
Pep Guardiola’s men have had some of Europe’s best players in that time. Arguably the best of the bunch is Kevin De Bruyne, who has played 388 games for the club, scoring 103 goals and registering 171 assists. In recent years, there has been another player who has arguably become even more important than De Bruyne, however.
Erling Haaland’s Manchester City record
The player in question here is City’s Norweigan striker Erling Haaland. The 24-year-old has been simply extraordinary since joining the club from Borussia Dortmund in 2022, and cannot stop scoring.
He has played 104 games for City so far and has scored an incredible 99 goals, grabbing 14 assists, too, which gives him more than one goal involvement per game. He has also scored 11 hat-tricks in all competitions in the sky blue of City.
In the Premier League, the Norway international has eight hatp-tricks and is now just four behind Sergio Aguero who currently has the most in Premier League history, with 12.
Player
Games
Hat-tricks
Sergio Aguero
275
12
Alan Shearer
441
11
Robbie Fowler
379
9
Erling Haaland
70
8
Theirry Henry
258
8
Harry Kane
320
8
Michael Owen
326
8
Haaland has won the Premier League Golden Boot in both of his completed top-flight seasons. In the 2022/23 campaign, he scored 36 goals in 35 games and scored 27 goals in 31 games last term.
City’s number nine is simply extraordinary and does not seem like stopping any time soon. Incredibly, the eight-time Premier League winners almost signed a player back in 2019 who is now arguably better than their star striker, Kylian Mbappe.
When Man City missed out on Kylian Mbappe
Yes, that is right, the Citizens wanted to sign the player many regard as the best in the world, back in 2018.
According to a report at the time from The Sun, Guardiola wanted the club to bid £200m for the Frenchman in January 2019, with his then-club Paris Saint-Germain potentially facing consequences for Financial Fair Play breaches.
The striker now plays at Real Madrid, after a long-awaited summer move from the French giants on a free transfer. He has already made a superb start to life at the Santiago Bernabeu, winning a trophy, the UEFA Super Cup, and scoring five goals in seven games.
His record at PSG was exemplary, and he became their all-time top goalscorer in March 2023. The France captain left the club having played 308 times, scoring a whopping 256 goals and grabbing 108 assists. As football statistician Statman Dave said, Mbappe is “inevitable”.
Had they signed the great forward in January 2019, the Citizens could have seen him eventually form a deadly partnership with that man Haaland.
The Real Madrid number nine enjoys playing on the left wing and with Haaland central, it could have proven to be a formidable duo, with fluid rotations, smart link-up play and lots of goals.
Nowadays, the pair have both been nominated for the 2024 Ballon d’Or. They are set to go up against current club teammates Vinicius Junior and Phil Foden for the esteemed prize, which neither have won at this stage of their career.
As City fans watch Haaland bang in the goals week in, week out, they might well sit there and think about what could have been if, four years ago, Guardiola had convinced the club’s ownership to break the world record transfer fee and sign Mbappe.
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2 ByDan EmerySep 19, 2024
