On Saturday, Erling Haaland will try to attain something against Brentford that nobody has managed since 1946.
The Manchester City striker has scored a hat-trick in each of his last two Premier League games and if he can rating one other against Thomas Frank's side on the Etihad Stadium this weekend, he’ll join a really exclusive list of players.
It has only happened 4 times that a player has scored three goals in three consecutive games within the English top division – and three of those were before 1930.
Here are the stories of those 4 opportunities and the boys the 24-year-old Norwegian international aspires to emulate.
Opponents: Liverpool, Leicester City, West Ham United
Osborne, Tottenham's centre-forward, played 26 times in all competitions for the club throughout the 1924–25 season… and did not rating a single goal.
That summer, the offside rule was modified – the variety of opposing players who needed to be in front of an attacker to avoid being offside was reduced from three to 2. Unsurprisingly, this led to more goals in games and more possibilities for Osborne and his fellow strikers (the goals per game ratio within the English top flight in 1925/26 was 3.69, in comparison with 2.58 the season before).
The England international (three appearances and 0 goals at that time) scored twice away against Sheffield United in his first game of the 1925/26 season, and three more goals got here in his next ten games, before Liverpool's visit to White Hart Lane on 24 October, where the 29-year-old scored a hat-trick as Tottenham won 3-1.
Per week later, Osborne – who was born near Cape Town in what’s now South Africa – scored one other three goals in the following game, away to Leicester. Tottenham lost that game 5-3, making it the one case on this list where a player scored his hat-trick in a losing effort.
The following Saturday, November 7, Osborne became the primary player in English top-flight history to attain a hat-trick in three consecutive matches as Tottenham beat West Ham 4-2 at home.
Frank Osborne, second from left, at a golf tournament in 1924 (Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix/Getty Images)
Osborne is the one certainly one of these 4 players to not have scored 4 goals in at the very least certainly one of the games in query, and can be the just one to not have scored a hat-trick within the treble of trebles against Arsenal.
He did not rating in Tottenham's next league match against Newcastle United, and he only managed yet one more top-flight hat-trick in his profession: against Newcastle in January 1928 (4 goals).
However, Osborne's form within the 1925/26 season – he finished the season with 25 goals in 39 league games – earned him a return to the national team, and in May he scored a hat-trick against Belgium, the primary time because the First World War that an English player had scored three goals in a match.
Tom Jennings, for Leeds United in 1926
Opponents: Arsenal, Liverpool, Blackburn Rovers
The Scotsman Jennings scored three hat-tricks in a row and took Leeds from sixteenth to seventh place within the early autumn of the 1926/27 season.
The striker joined the Yorkshire club from Scottish club Raith Rovers in 1925 and played every league game in his first full season (1925–26), scoring 26 goals.
The then 24-year-old began the 1926/27 season with three goals in seven league games, scoring three against visiting Arsenal on 25 September as Leeds won 4-1. Under the management of manager Arthur Fairclough, they travelled to Anfield on 2 October and Jennings scored 4 goals past Liverpool goalkeeper Arthur Riley, two goals in each half, to assist his side to a 4-2 victory.
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Per week later, Jennings scored one other 4 goals as Leeds beat Blackburn Rovers 4-1 at Elland Road.
In Leeds' next league game, away to Leicester, Jennings scored twice but did not rating a fourth consecutive hat-trick as they lost 3-2. Never before has a player come so near 4 consecutive hat-tricks within the English top flight.
Jennings finished that season with 37 goals in all competitions (35 of them within the league). That total has only been surpassed twice in Leeds' history – each times by John Charles (43 in 1953-54 and 39 in 1956-57), although Leeds were playing within the Second Division in the primary of those seasons.
However, the club's good run quickly ended after Jennings' three hat-tricks: Fairclough's team won only six of their last 32 league games and were relegated.
Dixie Dean, for Everton in 1928
Opponents: Burnley, Arsenal, Bolton Wanderers
Dean is arguably the very best goalscorer in English football history. In the 1927/28 season he scored 60 goals within the First Division for Everton. No other player – neither before nor since – has scored even 50 goals in a season within the English top flight.
Dixie Dean leads Everton – and sets a goal for Haaland (Barker/Getty Images)
Dean, who turned just 21 in January this season, played in 39 league games for Everton, scoring in 29 of them. He scored seven hat-tricks and his goals helped the club win the title for the primary time in 13 years.
He reached the 60-goal mark by scoring seven times in the ultimate two games of the season – 4 in a 5-3 win at Burnley on April 28 after which three at home to Arsenal in a 3-3 draw per week later, ending the season with two hat-tricks in a row.
Then, on the opening day of the 1928/29 season, Everton won 3-2 away against Bolton Wanderers, with Dean scoring all three goals to finish the hat-trick of all hat-tricks. The England international then did not rating in Everton's next game against The Wednesday (now Sheffield Wednesday, who would go on to win the title).
This is the one certainly one of 4 cases of three consecutive hat-tricks spanning two seasons.
In total, Dean scored 30 hat-tricks within the English top flight, a record. Haaland has eight, so he needs 23 more to beat that mark. Dean scored a hat-trick every 12.1 games on average during his profession within the English top flight (30 in 362 appearances) and the Norwegian averages 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 primary to be accomplished within the English Football League because the outbreak of the Second World War. The top division consisted of the identical 22 clubs that had competed within the 1939–40 season, when the season was abandoned after three games per team.
Liverpool won the title for the primary time in 24 years, powered by strikers Balmer and Albert Stubbins, who each scored 24 league goals. Ten of Balmer's 24 goals (42 percent) got here in three consecutive games in November.
The then 30-year-old – Balmer is the oldest player on this list – scored all three goals in a 3-0 win over Portsmouth at Anfield on 9 November, before scoring 4 more in 17 minutes in George Kay's side's 4-1 victory at Derby per week later. Then on 23 November, Balmer accomplished a feat that nobody has been in a position to match for nearly 78 years by scoring his third consecutive hat-trick in a 4-2 home win over Arsenal.
He scored in the next away game at Blackpool and scored 4 more goals before Christmas, but his form dipped after that and from 25 December until the top of the season he scored just 4 times in 19 league games (before that date he had scored 20 goals in 20 games).
These were the one three hat-tricks ever scored by Balmer, who played his entire profession for Liverpool from 1935 to 1952 and revamped 300 appearances.
Haaland added to his hat-trick against Ipswich (Michael Regan/Getty Images)
Haaland has been on this position before.
Just before the beginning of the 2022–23 Premier League season, his first with City, he scored two consecutive hat-tricks at home against Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest, but could only rating once in the following game, away against Aston Villa.
But with City playing at home to Brentford at 3pm on Saturday, there may be an excellent likelihood he’ll join Osborne, Jennings, Dean and Balmer. (Haaland has scored 17 goals in his 13 league games on the Etihad Stadium by that kick-off time.)
This can be a remarkable achievement that we’ll not see again anytime soon.
Now it's your turn, Erling.
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