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Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola says no player in world football can compete with the standards set by Erling Haaland at his age as he challenged the striker to continue improving.
Haaland made history on Sunday by becoming the first player to score hat-tricks in three successive home Premier League matches as City thumped rivals Manchester United 6-3.
The Norway international has 17 goals in 11 appearances in all competitions since arriving at the Etihad Stadium from Borussia Dortmund, where he tallied a prolific 86 goals in 89 games.
Aged 22 years and 47 days, Haaland last month overtook Kylian Mbappe as the youngest player to net 25 Champions League goals, also doing so in the quickest time (20 games).
“At his age no one can compete with him. No one,” Guardiola said. “We are very happy to have him. In training he is the same – sometimes he does some spectacular things. We are incredibly happy to have him.”
Haaland is averaging a goal every 48 minutes in the Premier League, which is the best rate of anyone to have scored more than once in the competition’s history.
He has found the net from 42 per cent of his shots (14 goals from 33 attempts) – the best conversion rate of any player with at least 20 efforts since such records were first recorded in the 2003-04 campaign.
Phil Foden, himself aged just 22, scored a hat-trick of his own in the derby thrashing of United and received strong plaudits from his manager.
“He’s an exceptional player who has grown up a lot,” Guardiola said at Tuesday’s pre-Copenhagen press conference.
“He’s reliable, so intense and clever in everything he does. He can also play every three days. Both he and Haaland know they can do better and hopefully they can do it.”
City’s win against United was their fourth in a row in all competitions as they extended their unbeaten run to 11 matches.