When people talk about Erling Haaland, they always start with the numbers. And fair enough 100 Premier League goals for City already, capped off by that mad 5 – 4 chaos at Fulham where he brought up the ton in pure carnage style. That alone is absurd.
But for me, Haaland isn’t just a stats machine. He’s a highlight reel that never stops updating. I don’t just remember the goals; I remember which goals. The one against Arsenal where his hair is flying as he finishes.
The lob against Chelsea when he catches the keeper miles off his line. The tight-angle hit versus Bournemouth where he nearly falls off the hoardings laughing afterwards. Even the scruffy one that goes in off his backside only Haaland could turn an accidental back massage into a Premier League goal.
You can slice his numbers however you want: left foot, right foot, headers, tap-ins, rockets, penalties. Certain teams probably see him in their sleep ask Wolves or West Ham fans.
And of course Kevin De Bruyne is there, like a cheat code, putting the ball on a silver plate again and again.
For a while, I honestly wondered if it might all get a bit… boring. How many times can you watch the same guy score and still be stunned?
Was there a danger that Haaland would become background noise – just another guaranteed goal every weekend, like a direct debit coming out of your account?
But here we are in 2025, and I’ve realised the opposite has happened. I’m actually enjoying him more now.
Partly it’s because City themselves aren’t as invincible as they once were. They wobble. They doubt. They chase. This isn’t the perfectly oiled machine of a few seasons ago; this is a giant with a few dents.
And in the middle of all that, there’s Haaland, throwing everything at it sprinting, scrapping, yelling, dragging them forward. He’s not just the finisher now; he’s the engine, the emergency plan, the guarantee that City are never really out of a game.
It’s the profile of someone who genuinely looks like the world’s best player and still rising, not just a flat-track bully.
And he’s grown as a footballer too. Early-era City Haaland was built off three main themes:
- The run between the centre-backs, bullying both and passing it into the corner.
- The back-post tap-in, arriving unseen to nudge it over the line.
- The first-time finish from a low cross, ball in the net before defenders even turn their heads.
Those are still there that’s his bread and butter. But now you see little evolutions. The disguised finishes. The delicate dinks.
The right-foot shots after sending a defender the wrong way. The calm, almost casual side-foots where he waits for the keeper to move first. A 6ft 4 battering ram shouldn’t be this subtle, but here we are.
Off the pitch, he’s loosened up as well. He jokes, he leans into the memes, he lets people see the weird, intense, self-aware side of him. He’s still a killer in the box, but you can tell he’s having fun being Erling Haaland.
And still, the numbers sit there, quietly ridiculous. He’s already alongside legends on the all-time Premier League list, and they needed twice the games to get there.
Factor in his age, his contract, the team around him we genuinely don’t know where the ceiling is for a scoring machine breaking records and shaping the future of football.
Yes, you can talk about context. City’s money. The quality around him. How modern football protects forwards. How the whole system is built to feed him, like Messi at Barça or Ronaldo at Madrid.
Some of that is true. But to write Haaland off as just a product of his environment is lazy. You still have to make the runs, feel the spaces, live with the pressure, score when everyone expects you to. That’s a different kind of genius.
For me, Haaland is the answer to one of the big problems in modern football: we’re drowning in data, in xG charts and passing networks, and sometimes we forget to just feel the game.
Haaland cuts through all that. You don’t need a heat map to understand him. You just watch the ball hit the net and say, almost involuntarily: “Wow.”
Will we ever get tired of seeing him score? Maybe one day. But right now, with 100 Premier League goals already in the bag, I’m nowhere near done watching. In fact, I’m just getting started.
