Erling Haaland says people ‘should criticise’ him after shattering 100 Premier League goal record in Manchester City’s bizarre 5-4 win at Fulham
Erling Haaland said people “should criticise” him if he does not deliver the very best after he scored his 100th Premier League goal in just 111 appearances, as City beat Fulham 5-4 in a game to remember. Haaland struck the upright before he scored, as he bounced back from consecutive matches without a goal to score his century and beat Alan Shearer’s 30-year record at Craven Cottage.
Erling Haaland said people “should criticise” him if he does not deliver top numbers after scoring his 100th Premier League goal in record time as Manchester City beat Fulham 5-4.
In a game for the ages, Haaland opened the scoring for City, having already hit the post early in the match, before assisting Tijjani Reijnders for City’s second and Phil Foden for the fourth, after the England midfielder had already scored a wonderful goal for the third.
Emile Smith Rowe’s header before half-time had made it 3-1 at the break, before Foden and then a Sander Berge own goal made it 5-1, but Fulham, inspired by the substitution of Samuel Chukwueze, scored three goals through Nigerians Chukwueze and Alex Iwobi to set up a tense finish.
In the end, City were able to hold on, reducing the gap to leaders Arsenal to two points in the process before their game with Brentford on Wednesday, and ensure all the talk post-match could be about Haaland.
The Norwegian forward now has 100 Premier League goals in 111 matches, beating Alan Shearer’s record of 124 matches, set almost 30 years ago exactly, on December 30, 1995.
For Haaland, reaching a century of Premier League goals faster than anyone else is something he does not take for granted, but he insisted as a striker for City, he should be delivering big numbers.
He told Sky Sports: “It [the record] is huge and I am really proud and of course it is a massive thing. The 100 club is a nice thing to be in and I am happy.
“I knew about it and that is what I tried to do. I tried to help the team with scoring goals and that is my job.
“Every game is a different game and you can’t think of the games that have been. You need to focus ahead, and the reality is we lost against Newcastle and Leverkusen and now we won two in a row, so we need to keep going.
“I don’t want to say the words, but when you are striker for Man City, you should be delivering great numbers and that is my job. People should criticise me if I don’t. That is normally what people do, so in the end I should deliver.”
Haaland now becomes just the 35th player to reach 100 Premier League goals and his next one will see him climb even higher, with Matt Le Tissier also on 100.
He still has some way to go to overtake Mohamed Salah as the top-scoring foreign player on 190, while Alan Shearer’s 260 is still the benchmark.
His manager, Pep Guardiola, hopes he remains as hungry as ever and is ready to score plenty more goals, while the City boss joked about his players not respecting him as the game almost got away from City.
Speaking to Match of the Day, he said: “It’s incredible, impressive. He was outstanding. Today he was unbelievable. He scored a fantastic goal.
“Hopefully he’s starving hungry to continue with this club to make more and more goals.
“I’m so old, and the players don’t respect me! They don’t have to treat their manager in that way.
“It only happens in this league. We played a fantastic game… Listen, there were some really positive things in what we have done. To come here, to score five goals, and the way we played in that first half.
“In the end, it was a question of character, resilience and defence. They did what they had to do.”
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