I watched each of Erling Haaland's 100 goals for Man City - they all have one thing in common

It started out with a miss, how did it end up like this?

Erling Haaland himself used the furore over his Community Shield miss vs Liverpool in August 2022 to his advantage. That day, on his debut for Manchester City, he somehow missed the target from six yards and had to watch as another debutant stole the show - Darwin Nunez.

The talk that week was how Haaland would struggle in the Premier League. How Nunez might be the better buy. How he might not make City stronger. 100 goals, 105 games, seven trophies, nine individual awards and countless broken records later... and Haaland has settled those debates emphatically.

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With Haaland reaching the 100-goal mark this week against Arsenal, we have looked back over each strike to break down how he scored them, who he scored against, who set him up, and why he has been so prolific. But the answer to any more detailed questions about how he does it might be disappointing - the most striking pattern is that there is no pattern.

Let's start with the headline numbers. Without Haaland's goals, City would have had 20 fewer Premier League wins over the last two seasons, and would have lost five games they drew. That accounts for an incredible 48 points, while his goals have been directly responsible for five wins and one draw in cup competitions.

His 11 hat-tricks have seen three occasions where he has netted four or five in a single game, and eight of those match-balls have been earned in the Premier League - racing towards the all-time record for hat-tricks in a fraction of the time of some great players. He was the fastest player to reach 10, 20, 25 and 50 Premier League goals, while his record for goals in a single season (36) beat Alan Shearer and Andy Cole's record in just 31 games, while those players got 34 in a 42-game season.

He has smashed records in the Champions League, too, including the most goals in a season for an English club. While his electric start re-wrote the history books for most goals at the start of a player's Premier League career.

So how did he score them?

Of course, there are lots of penalties, 18 in fact, but don't use that as a stat to play down Haaland's achievements. He has to step up and convert them, which he often does thanks to a 90 per cent conversion rate. In the two games he has missed a penalty, he then went on to score in the same match.

There are 28 goals from crosses - 16 with his feet and 11 from headers. Again, not the most scientific of finishes you may say - but then how is Haaland always in the right place to convert? And these include his acrobatic finish against Borussia Dortmund, his overhead kick at Southampton, and that sliding, long-legged goal he had no right to score against Manchester United. He's always there and that's no coincidence.

Similarly, should we downplay his six rebound goals After all, he didn't do any of the hard work, right? Or was he anticipating the goalkeeper's spill or the ball coming back off the woodwork. Six suddenly feels low for that kind of goal.

There are 23 one-on-one finishes - where he has had the goalkeeper to beat, with or without a defender to shrug off. Among those there are clinical low finishes into the corner, thumping high strikes into the roof of the net, and a fair few chips over the keeper. He got off the mark at West Ham in 2022 with a one-on-one, broke the Premier League scoring record in a season against the Hammers with a chip, and moved onto 97 goals with another chipped finish last month. His 100th goal was another classic of the genre - perfectly-timed run, and a poked finish under David Raya.

That chip is becoming something of a trademark when he's staring down a goalkeeper, and West Ham are probably sick of the sight of him. Once again, he's always looking for that run and has a range of finishes to apply to the right situation.

Only four of his strikes have been long-rangers - against Wolves, Brighton, Young Boys and Ipswich. Three have been low arrows into the bottom corner, with the Young Boys strike an anomaly as he fired into the top corner from range. Most of his finishes are inside the box - with the remaining 22 goals coming through various finishes in the area.

That category is harder to define. It could be a tap-in, converting a loose ball, taking a touch and finding the bottom corner, or something a little more emphatic like his strikes at Burnley last season or West Ham this. There are, of course, a number of finishes from cutbacks in there, too.

Haaland's 100 goals by finish:

• One-on-on - 23
• Finishes in the box - 22
• Penalty - 18
• Finish from cross - 16
• Header from cross - 11
• Rebound - 6
• Outside the area - 4

The majority of Haaland's goals have unsurprisingly come in the Premier League (75), with a healthy 17 in the Champions League. Seven have come in the FA Cup with just one so far in the Carabao Cup, underlining Pep Guardiola's management of his minutes. Incredibly, he hasn't scored in a final yet for City, nor at Wembley in five appearances.

Who assisted the most Haaland goals?

If you were to guess who has set up the most Haaland goals, you wouldn't get many prizes for correctly naming Kevin De Bruyne. He has more than double the assists for Haaland as the next teammate on 21 - accounting for one in five of Haaland's City goals. That number is more impressive given De Bruyne and Haaland didn't play together between August and January last season.

The defence-splitting through-ball for Haaland is the De Bruyne assist that springs to mind, but only eight of De Bruyne's assists have set up one-on-ones. The pair also have a connection that means Haaland always knows where to be from the cross, resulting in 11 goals - eight finishes and three headers. That United goal in his first derby is a classic example of their telepathic connection, as are the four assists De Bruyne provided for Haaland at Luton last season.

Phil Foden is next with 10 assists for Haaland, followed by Bernardo Silva on seven. Rodri is the surprise fourth-placed assisted on six, while Jack Grealish and Julian Alvarez have five each. John Stones, Joao Cancelo and Sergio Gomez each gave three assists, while Ederson is a noteworthy name on the list of assisters after his route-one rocket against Brighton in 2022/23 where he left one defender on the floor, and an almost-identical ball down the middle for goal number 99 against Brentford.

Haaland's 100 goals by assister:

• Kevin De Bruyne - 21
• Phil Foden - 10
• Bernardo Silva - 7
• Rodri - 6
• Julian Alvarez - 5
• Jack Grealish - 5
• Riyad Mahrez - 3
• John Stones - 3
• Joao Cancelo - 3
• Sergio Gomez - 3
• Matheus Nunes - 2
• Rico Lewis - 2
• Ederson - 2
• Manu Akanji - 1
• Nathan Ake - 1
• Ruben Dias - 1
• Savinho - 1
• No assist - 21

Perhaps significantly, there have been as many goals without an assist - 22 - as there have been from De Bruyne's boot. Most have been penalties, while others have been loose balls or deflections. As much as he is reliant on teammates, there is an element of a player taking responsibility when it matters, too, and reacting to lucky breaks in play.

Haaland's goals by opponents:

• Wolves - 8
• West Ham - 7
• RB Leipzig, Luton, Manchester United - 6
• Burnley, Nottingham Forest, Fulham, Crystal Palace - 5
• Everton, Young Boys - 4
• Arsenal, Brighton, Brentford, Chelsea, Copenhagen, Ipswich, Southampton, Tottenham - 3
• Bayern Munich, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Sevilla - 2
• Bournemouth, Borussia Dortmund, Newcastle, Sheffield United, Aston Villa - 1

There are wonderful finishes among the 100, of course, but most are just clinical, ruthless strikes. The right finish for the moment. Maybe even boring (in a good way) - the regularity and inevitability of the net bulging. There is no suspense or jeopardy with Haaland. He just.. scores.

It's rare that he chooses the wrong finish - although he won't want reminding of his misses against Nottingham Forest and Manchester United as well as Liverpool. That is the point, though.

For there to be only three glaring examples of the wrong choice in just over 100 games shows how good Haaland is at doing the right thing. It's simplistic to call him a machine, or a robot, but that is what machines and robots do. They eliminate human error.

Haaland's 100 goals show how few errors he actually makes - and the scary thing is he feels he is still making too many.