Over the past few years, Manchester City has successfully stolen the spotlight from their arch-rivals, Manchester United. Despite the Red Devils’ iconic history, it’s the Sky Blues who have been enjoying their best days. However, this dominance may not last much longer, as the red side of Manchester seems ready to turn the tide. With Ruben Amorim appointed to replace Erik ten Hag, the Red Devils appear more determined than ever to get back on track.

Still, managerial changes alone won’t close the gap, as the City boasts some of the league’s top talent, including Erling Haaland. On the other hand, United has lacked a comparable goal machine in recent years, but that could change as they set their sights on Viktor Gyokeres. The Sporting CP star is seen as a potential addition who could follow Amorim to Old Trafford.

With the Glazers and Sir Jim Ratcliffe working to secure the deal, we decided to compare Gyokeres and Haaland—two strikers who may soon face each other in Manchester’s most heated rivalry.

Erling Haaland at Manchester City

Generational talent is the only word that comes to our mind when talking about Erling Haaland. Having begun his career in his home country with Norwegian sides Bryne FK and Molde FK, the 23-year-old’s career took a flight at Austria’s Red Bull Salzburg in 2019. At that time, Haaland was already a big-name talent in the soccer world and the following year he earned a move to Borussia Dortmund.

After spending a couple of years in Germany, he finally made his breakthrough move to Manchester City in 2022, where he can’t stop breaking records. So far, Haaland has notched a whopping 239 goals and 50 assists in just 295 games. This is certainly quite a remarkable tally to achieve, considering the age he is running into.

Aside from scoring 16 hattricks in his domestic career, Haaland has scored 4 goals in a single match on three occasions and 5 goals at once, just twice. Meanwhile, his triple hat trick came during the 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup, helping Norway U20 secure a 12-0 win over Honduras U20, let alone the fact he has also notched 4 hattricks on the international stage.

The last campaign saw him net a total of 38 goals and 5 assists in just 45 games. Meanwhile, this season, Haaland is again on a scoring spree, notching 14 goals in 14 matches. While you must be thinking that the Norwegian is ahead of the race against Viktor Gyokeres, there’s one area that Erling is apparently trailing.

Viktor Gyokeres at Sporting CP

Addressing the elephant in the room. Viktor Gyokeres has somewhat enjoyed a sudden rise in the soccer world. Having begun his career with IF Brommapojkarna, the Swedish international played a season in Germany with FC St. Pauli, before enjoying several spells across English clubs including Brighton, Swansea City, and Coventry Country. It was in the summer of 2023 that the 26-year-old moved to Sporting Lisbon and enjoyed a remarkable success.

So far, Gyokeres has notched 186 goals and 56 assists for all the aforementioned clubs in over 359 appearances. Speaking of most goals scored in a single match, while he hasn’t scored a triple hat trick like Erling Haaland, the Swedish star has notched 7 hat tricks in his domestic career as well as scored 4 goals altogether in a single match. When compared with the Manchester City star, of course, Gyokeres is trailing with a significant gap. However, the game changes when looking at the recent two seasons.

During the 2023/24 campaign, Viktor bagged 43 goals and 15 assists in 50 games. Meanwhile, for this season, the 26-year-old has notched 20 goals and 4 assists in 16 games. That’s not all; when adding both club and country, Gyökeres has scored 22 goals while Haaland has scored just 17. Indeed, Viktor has proved himself a real goal machine.

Just imagine if he makes his way to Manchester United, then we will surely witness a tug-of-war between Gyokeres and Haaland.