Erling Haaland was given a guard of honour after Manchester City beat West Ham (Picture: Getty Images)
Erling Haaland was relaxed after scoring his record-breaking 35th Premier League goal of the season, although he said he is ‘really happy and proud’ to make history.
The Norwegian scored the second goal in a 3-0 win for Manchester City over West Ham, becoming the first player to score 35 goals in a Premier League season in the process.
Remarkably he has now scored 51 goals in all competitions in his debut season with the English side and is certainly enjoying himself.
‘Special night and special moment, I’m really happy and proud, what more is there to say?’ Haaland told Sky Sports.
‘Yeah I knew about it [the record], of course. We try to create the chances to score goals, it was not easy, they came here just to try to defend for 90 minutes.
‘Me and Jack [Grealish] spoke about it before the game, he wanted to give me the assist for the record-breaking goal. It was a perfect ball from Jack.’
There was a memorable moment after the game as Pep Guardiola organised the other players and staff members into a guard of honour for Haaland.
Sky Sports’ Dave Jones said he’d never seen the likes for a current player and the striker admitted he hadn’t either.
‘Not me either!’ Haaland said. ‘It was a nice feeling. Every single goal I score, especially to win the game is also really important.
‘It was really painful this guard of honour, everyone hit me in the back, it was really painful but it was a nice thing and I’m really happy.’
On his history-making striker, Guardiola said: ‘It’s unbelievable, how many goals Erling has scored. Important goals to help us win games.
‘He’s a unique person, some player of course, but as a person he’s also so special.
‘He deserved the guard of honour that we did for him. Maybe one day he could break his record, but he’ll have to score a lot of goals!’
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‘It was really painful this guard of honour.’