…Erling Haaland wins the PFA Player of the Year after stunning 52-goal, treble-winning season – beating out team-mates Kevin De Bruyne and John Stones to the gong
Erling Haaland produced an historic Premier League campaign last season.
Along with Manchester City winning an historic Treble, Haaland took English football by storm in his first year, scoring 52 goals in just 51 appearances.
In the Premier League the Norwegian scored 36 goals in 35 games – a new record – making him the unanimous selection to wrestle the PFA gong from Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah.
By winning the award, voted for by peers, in his debut Premier League season Haaland, who beat team-mates Kevin De Bruyne and John Stones to the trophy, becomes the first overseas player since Ruud van Nistelrooy in the 2001-02 campaign to win it in his debut season.
As well as the three stand-out City players in contention, Haaland also held off competition from Arsenal pair Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard. Harry Kane, now at Bayern Munich, was also nominated for the award.
The 23-year-old possessed ruthless efficiency in front of goal, bagging four league hat-tricks, as well as one in the FA Cup and a five-goal haul in the Champions League against RB Leipzig.
Popular with supporters, he was crowned PFA Fans’ Player of the Month three times last season: August 2022, September 2022, and December 2022.
Haaland will now be tasked with finding more space in his personal trophy cabinet having swept the board in 2022-23.
Along with Treble honours for City, Haaland took home the European Golden Shoe, the Football Writers’ Association Footballer of the Year, Premier League Player of the Season, Premier League Young Player of the Season, Premier League Golden Boot, UEFA Champions League Top Scorer, as well as Manchester City’s Player of the Season.
In the FWA voting Haaland dominated, earning 82 per cent of the votes to win the award, 75 years after Sir Stanley Matthews won the first trophy.
‘I feel good, it’s a special moment,’ he said upon winning that award. ‘I expected to do good things but, to do this, I didn’t expect.’
Asked how he enjoyed such a rich vein of form, Haaland tried not to dwell on circumstances that are not, or are no longer, in his control.
‘I don’t like to focus on the future or the past,’ he said. ‘I like to live in moment and I like to take it game-by-game – exactly what he (Pep Guardiola) said we were going to do and that’s what we did.
‘We focused and we achieved exactly what we wanted to achieve. In then end it’s unreal what we did, being behind all season and we came like a unit together. It was amazing and an amazing feeling.’
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the PFA prize and Haaland collected his prize at a ceremony on August 29, days after scoring in Man City’s 2-1 win away at Sheffield United.
MailOnline
