There was no doubt he could and would do it. The question was how soon would start banging in the goals. Thus it wasn’t surprising when Haaland was unstoppable in City’s 4-2 comeback win against Crystal Palace, scoring three times in 19 minutes after the visitors had led 2-0 at half-time.

Erling Haaland notched his first hat-trick in English football and joked his first target is passing the Premier League goals tally of his father, Alfie. The £51million Norwegian striker now has six goals in his first four games – the best start since Diego Costa for Chelsea in 2014.

He now says he wants to eclipse his father’s bragging rights of scoring more goals for Manchester City, having scored 18 Premier League goals in nine years as a midfielder for Nottingham Forest, Leeds, and City.

In comparison to when Mohammed Salah broke the record with 32 goals, the Egyptian only had two Premier League goals after four games, compared to Erling Haaland's impressive six.

The striker has scored more goals than any other player in Europe's top five leagues this season, and if he continues this form of six goals every four games, he will surely smash Mohammed Salah's record.

Haaland is averaging 1.65 goals per 90 in the Premier League, which is a 59% increase from his time in Germany, Erling Haaland's 13th career hat-trick, and it's likely that won't be the last one we see this season.

The Norwegian, who has penned a five-year deal with the blue side of Manchester city Club and has the magic wand for goals since making his first team debut at the tender age of 16.

Be it at Molde FK, Red Bull Salzburg, Borussia Dortmund, or for his national team. He has hit the back of the net with alarming regularity.

A scoring sensation if ever there was one, the numbers that have underpinned Haaland’s career to date are as remarkable as his stratospheric rise to becoming one of the world’s deadliest finishers.

Haaland has the best minutes per goal ratio in the history of the Bundesliga (minimum 25 goals).

The Norwegian averaged a goal every 87 minutes for Dortmund, putting him ahead of Robert Lewandowski (100 minutes), Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (116 minutes), and Bayern Munich and Germany legend Gerd Muller (105 minutes).  

He also has the best minutes per goal ratio in Champions League history (minimum 15 goals), scoring on average every 64 minutes, which comfortably beats the others in the top five: Mario Gomez and Roberto Soldado (both 102 minutes) and Lionel Messi and Harry Kane (both 104 minutes).

Haaland’s brace in Dortmund’s 2-2 Champions League draw with Sevilla last season saw him set three competition records in one swoop.

The striker’s second of the evening was his 20th goal in the tournament, a tally he reached at a younger age and in fewer games than anyone else, and it took him 14 matches to reach the feat, beating previous record holder Kane by ten games, whilst at 20 years, 231 days, he knocked Kylian Mbappe (21 years, 355 days) off top spot as the youngest player to get to 20 goals.

He is also the only player to do so before age 21, eclipsing Messi, Raul, Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney.

In total, Haaland scored 62 league goals in 67 games in Germany. No other player has hit the back of the net that often in their first 67 games.

He was also the first player to score 25 goals in his first 25 Bundesliga appearances and the youngest and quickest to net 50 times in the competition.

Following his arrival at Dortmund in January 2020, he scored two or more goals in the league on 23 occasions (20 braces, two hat-tricks, one game with four goals) – more than any other player in Europe’s big five leagues.

In the same time period, only Lewandowski (123) and Mbappé (93) have scored more competitive goals across all players from Europe’s big five leagues than Haaland (86).

Haaland has the knack of hitting the ground running at Dortmund like at Manchester, scoring a hat-trick on his debut against Augsburg and following that up with a brace in each of his next two games, and he became the first player to score five times in his first two Bundesliga appearances and seven in his first three.

He enjoyed equally impressive beginnings in the Champions League, hitting a hat-trick on his competition debut as Red Bull Salzburg beat Genk 6-2, and he is one of only ten players to score three times in his first Champions League appearance, with only Rooney (18 years, 340 days) doing so at a younger age than Haaland (19 years, 58 days).

The striker is also one of only four players to net in his first five Champions League games, following legends and football icons like Italy’s Alessandro Del Piero and Diego Costa of Spain. So it remains to be seen by how many goals he will blow his father's record of 18 goals out of the water in terms of goals for Man City.