West Ham 1-3 Manchester City: Another Haaland hat-trick keeps champions perfect

Erling Haaland scored yet another hat-trick as Manchester City maintained their perfect start to the Premier League season with a 3-1 win at West Ham.

Off the back of scoring a treble against Ipswich on matchday two, Haaland took his tally to seven goals for 2024-25 at the London Stadium.

The Norwegian produced a composed one-on-one finish for the opener before arrowing a powerful strike home for his second on the half-hour mark, after a Ruben Dias own goal had briefly dragged West Ham level.

Mohammed Kudus went close to a second West Ham equaliser after the interval, but Haaland wrapped up the points with another breakaway finish with seven minutes to play.

The victory keeps City top of the early-season standings with nine points from nine available, while West Ham are 14th with three points from three games under Julen Lopetegui.

1994 – Erling Haaland is the first player to score a hat-trick in two of a team’s first three league games in a season since Paul Jewell for Bradford in 1994-95. Diamond. #WHUMCI pic.twitter.com/XslGPlRI2H

— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) August 31, 2024

Data Debrief: Haaland’s best start yet

Haaland has earned a reputation as a fast starter since arriving in the Premier League two years ago, but never before has he kicked off a campaign in such ruthless fashion.

The City star had three goals at this stage of the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons. In 2024-25, he has seven goals from his first three matches.

Throughout the top four tiers of English football, he is also the first player to score a hat-trick in two of a team’s first three league games in a season since Paul Jewell for Bradford City in 1994-95.

Haaland now has eight Premier League hat-tricks for City, and only three players have helped themselves to the match ball on more occasions in the competition’s history – Sergio Aguero (12), Alan Shearer (11) and Robbie Fowler (nine).