When could Haaland break Shearer's goalscoring record?

After signing a new deal with Manchester City until 2034, Erling Haaland will now have his sights set on breaking Alan Shearer's Premier League record of 260 goals. Ryan Benson of Opta Analyst takes a look at when it could happen.

Manchester City announced on Friday that Erling Haaland has signed an astonishing nine-and-a-half-year contract. Suddenly, Alan Shearer's Premier League goals record looks a little less safe.

Haaland’s seamless transition to the Premier League and the unprecedented rate at which he’s scored led to discussion around his chances of breaking Shearer’s all-time goals record of 260 right from his early days at Man City.

While those debates were often somewhat tempered by a lingering uncertainty of how long Haaland would stay put, with whispers periodically suggesting he may like to play in Spain one day, the Norwegian’s now given the clearest indication yet that he’s in it for the long haul.

Haaland, 24, on Friday signed a new contract that will keep him tied to the club until 2034 in an extraordinary show of commitment from both Man City and the player.

As such, Haaland is pledging the best years of his career to City and, assuming he sees out the full length of the agreement, he’ll leave in 2034 having represented the club for 12 years.

Given the way he’s gone about his first two-and-a half years in English football, this news blasts open the possibility of Haaland breaking practically every meaningful Premier League goalscoring record.

Shearer’s status as the league’s all-time leading scorer is still safe for a little while, but for a long time it looked completely unassailable. So, how about now?

Speaking to BBC Sport, Shearer has no doubts his record will eventually be beaten: "I don’t think anyone saw that coming, an incredibly long contract. Congrats to him but it is a bit of a surprise.

"If he stays for that long no doubt he will break that record [all-time top scorer in the Premier League]. It might be someone else’s by then – like Harry Kane or Mo Salah.

"But there is no doubt if, and a big if, because such a long contract and takes him to 34, he should have a Premier League record goalscoring wise.

"There were great goalscorers before I was born that have incredible records as well.

"My record will go one day, I'm sure of that."

Hunting down Shearer's record

It’s fair to say one of the key elements of Friday’s news that many will be focusing on is what it means for Haaland’s goalscoring prospects in the Premier League.

We know he’s brilliant. The new contract comes with the Norway international having already scored 79 times in the league from just 87 appearances, which is a rate no one in Premier League history has maintained over such a long period of time.

Haaland reached 50 Premier League goals quicker than any other player in the competition’s history, doing so in 48 matches, and he’s on course to smash the record for fewest appearances to 100 goals.

Fittingly, Shearer is currently the benchmark for that one, doing so in 124 matches.

If Haaland carries on scoring at his current rate, he’ll get to 100 goals 14 matches quicker than Shearer.

That in itself should highlight the possibilities ahead for Haaland given Shearer is the one who’s way out in front for the all-time record.

So, how many Premier League goals could Haaland ultimately go on to score?

Obviously, we have to take a bit of a leap into the unknown here because there’s so much that may or may not hypothetically occur over the next nine and a half years, but roll with it.

If Haaland continues to score at his current goals-per-game rate, he will break Shearer’s record in his 287th appearance – the former Newcastle and England striker’s 260 came from 441 outings.

That puts Haaland potentially 200 appearances away from surpassing Shearer’s record. If he was to feature in each of City’s next 200 league matches, he’d get to that point in the second half of the 2029/30 season.

Of course, it’s incredibly unlikely Haaland will play so many fixtures in succession.

Since his Premier League debut for City, he’s featured in 90 per cent of their top-flight matches. So, if he maintains that frequency, he’ll require less than another six full seasons to make it to 260 goals.

But that’s just focusing on Shearer’s record and Haaland’s chances of breaking it. Considering his haul to date suggests he could get there with lots of time to spare, by how much could he actually extend the record?

Well, let’s say Haaland manages to maintain his goals-per-game rate, features 34 times each season, and stays at City until the end of his new contract in 2034. Then, he’s projected to score another 294 goals.

Therefore, by the time he leaves City at the end of his contract in 2034, Haaland would be on 373 Premier League goals – that’s 113 more than Shearer.

When Haaland could break record

There are of course many, many caveats to consider when thinking in realistic terms. The odds are he’ll spend some time out injured, Premier League defences could become more accustomed to his strengths, his rate might slow down considerably as he gets older, he might leave.

Either way, Haaland’s impact to this point in the Premier League has been immense – if it continues to be and he remains fulfilled at City, Shearer’s record may well have an expiry date.

Visit Opta Analyst's dedicated player page for more Erling Haaland stats.

All-time record?

Although Shearer’s record suddenly looks a little more attainable, even if realistically it is actually still quite far away, the all-time top-flight record is another several strides into the distance.

Stretching back to incorporate the pre-Premier League era, Jimmy Greaves scored 357 goals across spells at Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United between 1957 and 1971 – this is the all-time top-flight record.

He is one of just three players to surpass 300 goals in the top division of English football, alongside Steve Bloomer and Dixie Dean, with 314 and 310 respectively.

Shearer, then, may be the Premier League’s leading goalscorer but he drops to fifth (283) on the all-time list behind the aforementioned trio and Gordon Hodgson (288).

Of course, his overall figure differs slightly to the 260 mentioned before as Shearer also scored 23 across five seasons at Southampton in Division One before the inaugural Premier League campaign in 1992/93.

All-time English top-flight scorers

Haaland also has a little way to go with respect to Golden Boot awards.

Should he win it this season, a third campaign in a row, he’ll be halfway to Greaves’ record of finishing as the top scorer in six different top-flight seasons in England.

However, an achievement Haaland cannot match is the age Greaves was when he reached 100 English top-flight league goals.

Currently on 79 goals, Haaland’s already four years older than Greaves was when he reached his century in November 1960 (20 years, 29 days).

That said, that match was Greaves’ 133rd appearance in the English top flight, so Haaland only needs to score 21 goals in his next 46 Premier League matches to equal that, something that feels very much within his reach.

Just the tip of the iceberg

There’s a whole load of other records and accolades now seemingly within Haaland’s reach, though – if they weren’t before.

For one, Haaland’s already plundered eight Premier League hat-tricks, which is a total only three players in the history of the competition can better.

City legend Sergio Aguero leads the way on 12, but considering Haaland’s eight have come in two-and-a-half seasons, it wouldn’t even be that surprising if he went past the Argentinian’s haul by the end of the 2025/26 season.

Aguero will also be in Haaland’s sights with respect to City’s club record for Premier League goals.

He scored 184 times for City in the competition. That’s 93 more than anyone else, thus making him the only player in the club’s history to reach 100 Premier League goals.

Nevertheless, Haaland is of course only 11 behind the player in second on 91, Raheem Sterling. Aguero’s 184 is obviously still a way off, but Haaland is on course to surpass it in his 205th top-flight match for City.

Haaland will presumably hope he can also improve on his own record-breaking debut campaign of 2022/23, when he scored 36 times.

The Premier League had to wait 28 years for the record – shared by Andrew Cole and Shearer – of 34 goals in a single season to be bettered, and Haaland did it at the first time of asking.

What made it even more impressive was the fact his haul came from 35 matches in a 38-game season; Cole and Shearer netted 34 in 40 and 42 matches, respectively.

As such, Haaland’s goal frequency sets the pace.

On average, he scores a goal every 91 minutes in the Premier League, which is comfortably better than any other player in the history of the competition to play at least 5,000 minutes.

Aguero had been the benchmark in that regard for a long, long time as he netted at a rate of one every 108 minutes, but Haaland’s come along and blown everyone out of the water.

While City’s 2024/25 season looks set to be a disappointing one on the whole, when a certain Norwegian striker departs in 2034, it might also be a campaign we look back on as a sliding-doors moment, the time Haaland truly began writing his Premier League legacy.

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