'Neither Lionel Messi nor Cristiano Ronaldo can compare': the amazing Erling Haaland is already becoming a legend

Erling Haaland's hat-tricks are boring his teammates, but pundits are stunned.

The Manchester City squad had to sign another match ball The Norwegian at the weekend, when he scored a hat-trick against West Ham, his second in just four games this season.

That made it 12 hat-tricks in total for Haaland, and eight in the Premier League alone, lifting him to fourth on the all-time list.

It also saw the 24-year-old reach the 70-goal mark in English football's top flight in record time, doing so in just 69 games.

This also left his teammates scrambling for answers, with several of them signing his souvenir ball with some pretty funny insults.

Scoring at an incredible pace since his arrival in 2022 from Borussia Dortmund It has seen many predict that Haaland will inevitably become the Premier League's all-time leading scorer.

But it is only the sheer number of hat-tricks that has earned him the highest possible praise: comparisons with the two greatest players of the modern era.

In response to Haaland closing in on the league's top three hat-trick scorers in more than 200 fewer games, the former Manchester United man and Manchester City Midfielder Owen Hargreaves was not shy in praising the team.

“They are the legends of our game, of our league, some of the best in history,” he began.

“(Sergio) Aguero, (Alan) Shearer, (Robbie) Fowler, (Thierry) Henry. We are talking about the best of the best.

“But eight hat-tricks in 69 games, we’ve never seen anyone, not even (Lionel) Messi or (Cristiano) Ronaldo, achieve those figures. It’s really astonishing.”

His teammate and former City star Stuart Pearce was equally baffled.

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“Has the number of games gone down by one digit? Is it 169?” he said. “It’s incredible, these are the legends of our game and you are creating a legend.”

Commenting after the win that left City unbeaten at the top of the league with a perfect record, manager Pep Guardiola called Haaland 'unstoppable'.

“He is playing much better in everything,” Guardiola said after the match. “He stays for 20 minutes or half an hour after training. Last season he was not in the game even once because he was not feeling well, tired, with discomfort.”

“What he needs is for the team to give him more balls in the final third. We are going to create those situations. He is unstoppable, there is no central defender, not even with a gun, who can stop him.”

Manchester City's next game will be against Brentford on September 14 after the international break.

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