Erling Haaland makes Premier League history after bagging Manchester City opener against Brentford | OneFootball

Manchester City forward Erling Haaland set another scoring record after breaking the deadlock against Brentford on Sunday evening.

The GTech Community Stadium observed a minute’s silence ahead of the 16:30 UK kick-off to honour the victims of Thursday’s terror attack on a synagogue in Greater Manchester that took the lives of two and injured at least four others.

Haaland opened the scoring nine minutes into kick-off after being played in by Josko Gvardiol, beating a couple of challenges from the Brentford defence and slamming the ball home past goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher.

The Norwegian has been in scintillating form this season and has been seemingly unfazed by the notable departure of Manchester City’s long-serving architect-in-chief Kevin De Bruyne, who joined Napoli on a free transfer in June.

Haaland took his tally to 11 goals for the 2025-26 season in midweek with a brace against AS Monaco in a 2-2 UEFA Champions League draw, though Eric Dier’s injury-time penalty salvaged a point for the Ligue 1 side at Stade Louis II.

However, Haaland picked up right where he left off on the French Riviera as he slotted home past Kelleher nine minutes into kick-off against Brentford, with Squawka reporting that the 25-year-old has now scored at 22 of 23 stadiums he has played at in the Premier League; the highest ratio of any player in Premier League history (96%).

The Leeds-born star has been in red-hot form since his brace against Wolves in a 4-0 win at the Molineux Stadium on the opening day of the 2025-26 Premier League season, often taking matters into his own hands and demonstrating an individualism in his centre-forward play in the absence of an obvious creator-in-chief.

Jeremy Doku, Phil Foden, Tijjani Reijnders and Bernardo Silva have all provided the goods for Manchester City’s talisman this season, though defenders Nico O’Reilly and Gvardiol are also equally dangerous when bombing forward as has been illustrated in Manchester City’s encouraging run of results since the start of September.

City are navigating a crossroads period of transition on and off the pitch and Guardiola will be ecstatic to see Haaland – who joined the club from Borussia Dortmund in 2022 – is leading by example upon his appointment to the club’s leadership group after the departures of De Bruyne and Kyle Walker in the summer.

Haaland expressed his frustration at Manchester City’s late collapse against AS Monaco in mid-week, with Guardiola delighted to see the competitive spirit in the camp so early into the season albeit stressing on his preference for feedback to be relayed within the dressing room.

Manchester City tied Haaland to a 10-year contract in January that is set to keep the Scandinavian star at the Etihad Stadium till the end of the 2023-24 season, with Haaland understood to be earning around £400,000-per-week under his new deal.

Guardiola will be aware that City need to spread the goalscoring workload around their attack as the season progresses after Haaland has shouldered the overwhelming majority of responsibility to find the net for the Blues since Julian Alvarez joined Atletico Madrid last summer.