When will Erling Haaland become the Premier League all-time top goalscorer?

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Can he catch Shearer? 

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Erling Haaland has decided to commit his future to Manchester City, with the Norwegian striker opting to sign a new contract extension that will keep him at the club until the summer of 2034. Not only will the new deal be seen as a significant triumph for Pep Guardiola and his backroom staff, but it should also have a huge impact on the next decade of football in the Premier League and, most importantly, who will be scoring the most goals in the English top-flight. It’s easy to forget the sheer revelation Haaland has been since arriving in the Premier League in the summer of 2022. Wehave already become so used to him scoring unprecedented amounts of goals. The Norwegian already has 79 Premier League goals. For context that is more than the likes of Eidur Gudjohnsen, Alexandre Lacazette and David Beckham managed in their entire careers. A true goalscoring machine.

How far off the Premier League top goalscorers list is Haaland? 

Aside from the slightly more important task of winning trophies and silverware for his club, Haaland will also have at least one eye on continuing his remarkable goal scoring record in the division and using his new contract extension to catch the competition’s top goalscorers of all time. As we can see in the table above, the Norwegian striker is still someway off even making it into the top 10, never mind catching the striker with the most goals in the competition’s history. With 79 goals in 87 games to date, Haaland is still a massive 181 goals away from matching the record set by Alan Shearer, when the English striker bagged an incredible 260 goals in 441 games for Blackburn Rovers and Newcastle United. In fact, he still needs to score another 83 goals just to make it into the top 10 and match Robbie Fowler’s record of 162 goals in 376 games for Liverpool, Leeds United, Man City and Blackburn. 

However, Haaland can certainly take courage from the number of relatively recent names in the top 10. Not only did Harry Kane rise to second place on the list thanks to his 213 goals for Tottenham Hotspur, but Mohamed Salah currently sits joint seventh with Thierry Henry thanks to his success at Liverpool in recent seasons and will undoubtedly be hoping to rise further up it before he eventually hangs up his boots. But perhaps the one striker that Haaland will be looking to emulate at Man City in the years to come will be none other than Sergio Agüero, who became a Man City legend thanks to the 184 league goals he scored for the club in 274 games. 

How long will it take Erling Haaland to beat Alan Shearer’s record?

As previously noted, Haaland has already scored a remarkable 79 goals in just 87 league games in the Premier League. When we translate that over to his minutes player (7,219) it gives us an average of 0.98 goals per 90 minutes of league football since he made the move to Man City. If we then consider that he has to score a further 181 league goals to beat Shearer’s record of 260 Premier League goals, it suggests that Haaland will likely score the necessary goals to become the Premier League’s all-time goalscorer in around 184 games time. That may seem like a lot of football left to play, but it’s worth bearing in mind that the Norwegian striker is also remarkably consistent when it comes to being fit and available to play. 

Since making the move to Man City, Haaland has missed just 10 league games for Guardiola’s side over the course of two and a half seasons. If we then take an average of his league games per season, it works out at 33 league games played per campaign. Which means that Haaland will likely beat Shearer’s record in around five and a half seasons, which should put him there or thereabouts at the end of the 2029/30 campaign. Of course, a number of things could delay that and push his numbers back, such as any serious injuries to the striker or Man City’s standing in the Premier League dropping off from their all-conquering status at this moment in time, but at just 24 years of age, it seems unlikely that the player will slow down through natural ageing between now and then and is certainly showing no interest in doing anything else aside from sticking the ball in the back of the net.