Andy Cole Demands More Respect For Setting Record Recently Broken By Erling Haaland

Manchester City's Erling Haaland recently broke a 29-year record by scoring 36 goals in a Premier League season. The record had belonged to Andy Cole.

Manchester City striker Erling Haaland recently broke a 29-year record by scoring 36 goals in a Premier League season.

The record for most goals scored in a single EPL campaign had previously been set by Andy Cole, who netted 34 times in 40 games for Newcastle in 1993/94.

Alan Shearer equaled the record a year later with 34 goals in 42 matches for 1994/95 champions Blackburn Rovers but it then took almost three decades for any other player to match what Cole had done.

Haaland's 36 goals came in just 35 appearances and he has naturally received widespread praise for his achievement.

The 22-year-old has already been voted by journalists as the FWA Footballer of the Year and he is expected to win the PFA Players' Player of the Year award too.

LIVING MY DREAM 🤩🫶🏻 pic.twitter.com/uDQk7txbi0

— Erling Haaland (@ErlingHaaland) May 28, 2023

But is Haaland scoring 36 goals for the best team in the land really more impressive than what Cole did in the early 1990s? Cole himself is not convinced.

A fact often overlooked is that Cole's 34 goals came for a team that had only been promoted to the EPL in the previous season.

Cole doubts that Haaland would have got close to his record had he been playing for Fulham, Bournemouth or Nottingham Forest, rather than for a City team that had averaged 97 league goals per season in the five years prior to the Norwegian's arrival.

FanNation Futbol spoke to Cole this week and asked him how many goals he thinks he might have scored had he played for this City side at his peak.

He replied: "If I answer how many goals I'd get in this Manchester City side, I'll get made out to be arrogant.

"No one's actually mentioned I did it in a newly promoted side, it would be interesting to see how Erling Haaland would do in a newly promoted team.

"My record is seen as nothing because someone has broken it. But Haaland can't be greater than the first person who set the record.

"It's like Neil Armstrong who was the first man who landed on the moon... He was the greatest because he was the first man to do it. You can't be greater than the first individual who set those standards.

"But it is what it is. The way my record has been perceived is as if it wasn't worth two bob, but now Haaland broke the record, he's now a 'phenomenon'."

As well as Newcastle, Cole played for Manchester United, Man City, Blackburn and Portsmouth during his Premier League career, scoring 187 goals in total.

Cole was speaking to FanNation Futbol on behalf of Boyle Sports, whose FA Cup odds have City as strong favorites to beat United in Saturday's all-Manchester final at Wembley.

Andy Cole pictured holding the Golden Boot award in 1994 after scoring 34 goals for Newcastle in his first ever EPL season :: IMAGO/PA Images