Perhaps the data-soaked discourse of modern football actually does this Premier League centurion something of a disservice
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tack them up. Pile them high. Sort them and arrange them, parse them and categorise them, order them to your table like items in a Chinese restaurant. Personal favourites? Give me the No 33 against Arsenal, the one with the flowing hair. I’ll also take a No 81 against Chelsea, when he spots a hapless Robert Sánchez out of goal, and lobs him deliciously from the edge of the area.
Give me a No 98 against Bournemouth, in which he deliberately slants his run around the keeper, slots it in from a tight angle, tries to clamber atop the advertising hoardings in triumph, loses his balance, collapses in peals of giggles. And maybe chuck in a No 53 against Brentford, in which Kristoffer Ajer somehow manages to fall over without being touched, spooked into incoherence by his very presence.
And perhaps numbers – the basic currency of football – are the most instinctive way of interpreting Erling Haaland’s 100 Premier League goals for Manchester City, a career built on accumulation, the pursuit of hard round certainties. Seventy-one with his left foot. Seventeen with his head. Eleven with his right foot. And one with his bum, No 49 against Chelsea, in which the ball rolls up his back as he slides over the line, perhaps the first Premier League goal that also doubles up as a massage.
