Erling Haaland is rewriting history in front of goal, a terrain he is conquering with every game he plays for Manchester City.

His 19 goals in 12 games with the ‘Cityzens’ are the cold reflection in numbers of his current level. He is the ‘pichichi’ of the Premier League (14 in eight games) and the Champions League (five in three), but he always wants more.

“The figures speak for themselves. They’re scary, to be honest. What he is doing he did before in Norway, in Austria and in Germany. It’s not something I taught him. The quality we have helps him score. He has an unbelievable instinct. He was born to score goals,” said Pep Guardiola of Haaland.

Such is his form that he has opened a debate unthinkable a few months ago: Will he be able to score more goals than Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi?

Pundits in England and Europe are fantasising about how many goals he can score this season and whether he will break the Premier League and Champions League records for goals in a season. The records of 34 goals by Andy Cole (Newcastle, 1994) and Alan Shearer (Blackburn, 1995) in a 42-game English league season and 32 by Mo Salah (Liverpool, 2018) in a 38-game season are in jeopardy.

Even Dixie Dean‘s (Everton, 1928) record of 60 could falter. He could also beat Messi’s 82 goals in the whole of 2011/12 and Cristiano Ronaldo’s 17 in the 2013/14 Champions League at the current rate (a goal every 1.6 games).

Generation-defining records are under threat from Haaland who, at 22, has amassed an enormous goal tally. At his age, neither CR7 nor Leo came close to the 154 goals in 194 games the Norwegian has scored for Bryne, Molde, RB Salzburg, Borussia Dortmund and Manchester City, according to Transfermarkt. His average is 0.8 per game.

Excluding his performances in the youth teams, Messi had scored 80 goals in 162 games (0.5 on average) for Barcelona at the age of 22 years and two and a half months. In 2008/09, in which he won everything under Guardiola, the Argentinian broke into the goalscoring charts (38 goals) although until then his ceiling was 17 in 2006/07. Haaland’s scoring rate is more consistent (44 in 2019/20 between RB Salzburg and Dortmund, 41 in 2020/21 and 29 in 2021/22 with BVB and, so far, 19 with City).

Cristiano Ronaldo, who had already made the leap from Sporting CP to Manchester United, had 53 goals in 214 games (0.25 average) at Haaland’s current age. He was still a winger and not the voracious predator who went on to become the all-time leading scorer in the history of football, national teams (117) and Real Madrid (451). It was not until the following season (2007/08) that he exploded as a scorer (42 goals) and won the Golden Shoe.

It is in the Champions League that Erling has made his mark. With RB Salzburg, he entered the tournament with a bang (eight goals in five games) and in his fourth season in the top continental competition, he is continuing to make his mark.

With 28 goals in 22 matches in the competition, Haaland has already scored more goals in the Champions League than legends such as Rivaldo and Luis Suarez in their entire careers (27). And his goals-per-game average (1.27) is higher than that of 98 teams who have taken part in the competition.

He also wins the comparisons. In their first 28 matches, Cristiano (all-time Champions League top scorer with 140 goals) scored three goals and Messi (second in the ranking with 127) 14. Even Mbappe, his great rival for the football throne in the next decade, is behind in his first 28 Champions League games (17 goals). The PSG star, at 22, had 131 goals in 202 – close to Haaland but not above. The Norwegian has his own standards. And he changes them every game.

“I knew I would adapt, but everything is going fast. For me it was just a matter of arriving, not thinking too much, not trying to do more things than necessary and trying to do what I do best, which is score,” Haaland said. He has no limits.