Haaland set to smash Ronaldo scoring record with 12 games to spare

Cameron Smith

• Updated: 23 Jan 2023 08:44 GMT
• 4 min read

Erling Haaland scored his fourth Premier League hat-trick of 2022/23 during Manchester City's 3-0 victory over Julen Lopetegui's Wolverhampton Wanderers, and in the process continued his immaculate scoring record since moving to England.

The Norwegian international has now netted trebles against Crystal Palace, Nottingham Forest, Manchester United and Wolves, and has only failed to score in five of his 19 league games this term.

Questions have been asked over whether the 22-year-old has actually made Man City a worse team, but Haaland remains a goalscoring machine and that is testified by the records he's already set this season, and the ones he's set to break before the summer.

READ: Premier League top scorers 2022/23: Haaland beats last season's winning total

He now sits on 25 goals in just 19 Premier League appearances, which would've been good enough to win the Golden Boot in each of the past four seasons.

Furthermore, he's now closing in on Cristiano Ronaldo's best ever goal-scoring season in the Premier League, having already surpassed every other campaign the Portuguese star had in the English top flight.

READ: Erling Haaland at Man City: Goals, assists, results & fixtures in 2022-23

Haaland set to smash Ronaldo record

Ronaldo, who joined Saudi Arabian side Al-Nassr following the conclusion of the 2022 World Cup, netted 31 goals during the 2007/08 Premier League season, while also contributing seven assists.

That output came in just 34 league games, with his form first catching the eye of Real Madrid, who later purchased him for a world-record fee in 2009.

Haaland, however, is on course to beat Ronaldo's best ever scoring campaign in the Premier League by the start of March. That feat is made even more impressive by the fact the competition stopped for a month mid-season due to the World Cup.

The former Borussia Dortmund forward is currently on 25 goals in 19 games, which works out at 1.32 goals per game. Dive even deeper into the numbers, and Haaland is scoring a goal every 62 minutes in the Premier League this season.

If he carries on at the same scoring rate, he needs 464 more minutes to score seven league goals, which will take him onto 32 for the campaign and move past Ronaldo's best ever year in front of goal in England.

That works out at 5.1 sets of 90 minutes, meaning if Haaland plays the full game in each of Man City's next six league games, he'll achieve the feat. However, that is reliant on Pep Guardiola not substituting him early, but the same outcome is also reached if you take his goals per game instead. Using that tally, Haaland need 5.3 more games to reach 32 Premier League goals.

If Haaland stays fit and plays in each of the Citizens' upcoming six league fixtures, he will break Cristiano Ronaldo's best ever Premier League goal-scoring season during Man City's clash at home to Newcastle United on March 4, with 12 league games left of the campaign.