Erling Haaland aims for three hat-tricks in a row – but how rare is that?

September 13, 2024

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Erling Haaland aims for three hat-tricks in a row – but how rare is that?

On Saturday, Erling Haaland will attempt to do something against Brentford that no one has managed since 1946.

The Manchester City striker has scored a hat-trick in his previous two Premier League games and if he manages to score another hat-trick at the Etihad Stadium against Thomas Frank’s side this weekend, he will join a very exclusive list of players.

Only four times has one player scored three goals in three consecutive games in the English top division, and three of those were before 1930.

Here, The Athletics tells the stories of those four occasions and the men the 24-year-old Norwegian international hopes to emulate.

Opponents: Liverpool, Leicester City, West Ham United

Tottenham striker Osborne made 26 appearances for the club in all competitions in the 1924–25 season… and failed to score a single goal.

That summer, the offside rule was changed, with the number of opponents required to be in front of the attacker to make them onside reduced from three to two. Unsurprisingly, this led to higher-scoring games and more chances for Osborne and his fellow attackers (the goals per game for the English top flight in 1925–26 was 3.69, up from 2.58 the season before).

The England international (three caps and zero goals at the time) scored twice away to Sheffield United in his first game of the 1925–26 season. Three more goals came in his next 10 games, prior to Liverpool’s visit to White Hart Lane on 24 October, where the 29-year-old claimed a hat-trick as Tottenham won 3–1.

A week later, in their next match, Osborne — who was born near Cape Town in what is now South Africa — scored three more goals away to Leicester. Tottenham lost that match 5-3, making it the only time on this list that a player has scored his hat-trick in defeat.

The following Saturday, November 7, Osborne became the first player in English top-flight history to score a hat-trick in three consecutive games when Tottenham won 4–2 at home to West Ham.

Frank Osborne, second from left, at a golf tournament in 1924 (Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix/Getty Images)

Osborne is the only one of the four players not to have scored four goals in at least one of the games in question, and the only one not to have scored a hat-trick against Arsenal as part of their treble win.

He failed to score in Tottenham’s next league match against Newcastle United and went on to score only one more top division hat-trick in his career, against Newcastle in January 1928 (four goals).

However, Osborne’s form in 1925–26 – he finished the season with 25 goals in 39 league games – earned him an international call-up, and he scored a hat-trick against Belgium in May. It was the first time an England player had scored three goals in a match since the First World War.

Tom Jennings, for Leeds United in 1926

Opponents: Arsenal, Liverpool, Blackburn Rovers

Scot Jennings scored three hat-tricks in a row to guide Leeds from 16th to 7th in the early autumn of the 1926–27 season.

The striker joined the Yorkshire club from Scottish side Raith Rovers in 1925 and in his first full season (1925–26) he played every league game, scoring 26 goals.

The then 24-year-old began the 1926–27 season with three goals in seven league games, then found the net three times against visitors Arsenal on 25 September as Leeds won 4–1. Under manager Arthur Fairclough, they travelled to Anfield on 2 October and Jennings fired four shots past Liverpool goalkeeper Arthur Riley, two goals in each half, to help his side win 4–2.

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A week later, Jennings scored four goals again as Leeds beat Blackburn Rovers 4-1 at Elland Road.

In Leeds’ next league game, away to Leicester, Jennings scored twice but failed to make it four in a row as they were beaten 3-2. This is still the closest anyone has ever come to scoring four consecutive hat-tricks in the English top division.

Jennings finished that season with 37 goals in all competitions (35 of which were in the league). This total has only been bettered twice in Leeds’ history – both times by John Charles (43 in 1953–54 and 39 in 1956–57), although Leeds played the first season in the Second Division.

However, the club’s run of good form was quickly cut short when Jennings scored three hat-tricks, with Fairclough’s team winning just six of their last 32 league games and being relegated.

Dixie Dean, for Everton in 1928

Opponents: Burnley, Arsenal, Bolton Wanderers

Dean is perhaps the greatest goalscorer in English football history, having scored 60 times in the First Division in 1927-28 for Everton. No other player – before or since – has ever scored 50 goals in an English top-flight campaign.

Dixie Dean leads Everton to victory – and sets up a goal for Haaland (Barker/Getty Images)

Dean, who only turned 21 in January that season, played in 39 league games for Everton, scoring in 29 of them. He hit seven hat-tricks and his goals helped the club win their first title in 13 years.

He reached the 60-goal mark by scoring seven times in the final two games of the season – four at Burnley on 28 April in a 5–3 win and then three at home to Arsenal a week later in a 3–3 draw. This meant he finished the season with back-to-back hat-tricks.

Then, on the opening day of the 1928–29 season, Everton won 3–2 away to Bolton Wanderers, with Dean scoring all three to make it a hat-trick of hat-tricks. The England international then failed to score against The Wednesday (now Sheffield Wednesday, who would go on to win the title) in Everton’s next match.

This is the only one of four instances of three consecutive hat-tricks spread over two seasons.

All in all, Dean has scored a record 30 hat-tricks in the top flight of English football. Haaland has eight, so needs 23 more to surpass this record. Dean has averaged a hat-trick every 12.1 games during his top flight career in England (30 in 362 appearances) and the Norwegian has an average of one every 8.6 games (eight in 69 games).

Jack Balmer, for Liverpool in 1946

Opponents: Portsmouth, Derby County, Arsenal

The 1946–47 season was the first season completed in the English Premier League since the outbreak of the Second World War. The top division consisted of the same 22 clubs that had played in the 1939–40 season, when it was abandoned after each team had played three games.

Liverpool won the title for the first time in 24 years, led by strikers Balmer and Albert Stubbins, who both scored 24 goals in the competition. Ten of Balmer’s 24 (42 per cent) came in three successive games in November.

The then 30-year-old – Balmer is the oldest player on this list – scored all three at Anfield in a 3–0 win over Portsmouth on 9 November, before netting four in 17 minutes away to Derby a week later as George Kay’s side triumphed 4–1. Then on 23 November, Balmer completed a feat not matched in the almost 78 years since by scoring a third successive hat-trick in a 4–2 home win over Arsenal.

He scored once in the following game away at Blackpool and scored four more before Christmas, but his form then declined and from 25 December until the end of the season he scored just four times in 19 league games (having previously scored 20 times in 20 games).

These were the only three hat-tricks ever scored by Balmer, who played his entire career for Liverpool from 1935 to 1952, making over 300 appearances.

Haaland adds to his hat-trick against Ipswich (Michael Regan/Getty Images)

Haaland has held this position before.

At the start of the 2022-23 Premier League season, his first with City, he scored back-to-back hat-tricks at home to Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest, but in their next match, away to Aston Villa, he managed just one goal.

But with a packed match between City and Brentford on Saturday at 3pm (Haaland had scored 17 goals in his 13 league games at the Etihad Stadium by that point) there is a real possibility he will join Osborne, Jennings, Dean and Balmer.

That would be a remarkable achievement, and it is highly unlikely we will see anything like it again in the long term.

Now it’s your turn, Erling.