Just a few (unorganized) thoughts ...
In the BT Sport interview after the RB Leipzig game, he couldn't remember the goals, because it was all just a blur. But in the CBS interview, he listed every single miss and every single mistake he made, and how they bothered him, and how he could do better. I think that really says a lot. Forever hungry.
In the Premier League, he has scored 28 goals after 27 games of the season, and is therefore well en route to be the all-time top scorer. A thing to notice, though, is that he has only played 2118 minutes in total. Converted to 94 minute games, this sums up to about 22.5 full games. For the 26 games he has played, he averages about 81 minutes, which means that for every full (94 min) game he plays, he's subbed off after 68 minutes in the next. Without any stats to back this up; my conception is that he's subbed off early in the games where he thrives and scores for fun, while Pep keeps him on for the full 90+ minutes in games where he struggles and doesn't achieve much. If he were instead allowed to frolick on in the "easy games", these stats could look even better!
There is also a noticeable difference when he plays in the Champions League. This can of course be explained by City players being more hungry in this tournament than in the Premier League. However, I also think there's a noticeable difference in the opposing teams' approach to the games. While about 17 out of 19 PL teams are more than happy with parking the bus, and clinging on to a goalless draw, or even happy about containing "just a 0-1 loss", the CL opponents will actually open up and try to attack, which suits our viking exceptionally well. And if we go one up in the CL, our opponent isn't going to continue to lie back and be happy with a small loss, they will just open up even more, which just causes a snow ball effect where we (and Erling) just scores even more.
By the way, next in line on the all-time CL top scorer list: Gerd Müller (34), just one goal ahead of Erling (33).
Another stat I haven't seen anyone else here mention yet, is the Champions League goals to games ratio. He's absolutely run away with it, currently having 1.32 goals per game. The next on the list are:
2. Gerd Müller, 0.99 (1969–1977)
3. Ferenc Puskás, 0.88 (1956–1966)
4. José Altafini, 0.86 (1959–1976)
5. Alfredo Di Stefano, 0.84 (1955–1964)
6. Robert Lewandowski, 0.82 (2011–)
7. Lionel Messi, 0.79 (2005–)
8. Cristiano Ronaldo, 0.77 (2003–2022)
...
11. Eusébio, 0.71 (1961–1974)
12. Kylian Mbappé, 0.66 (2016–)
13. Karim Benzema, 0.60 (2005–)
A bit further down the list sits Salah at 0.56, Neymar at 0.53, Agüero at 0.52, Henry at 0.45, van Persie at 0.42, Zlatan at 0.39, Suárez at 0.37, Rooney at 0.35, ...
This is such a ridiculous feat. He's just miles and miles ahead of the rest. I wanted to make some kind of graphic to illustrate this, as it's really hard to even comprehend these numbers when you just read them. Maybe just some silly graph, or perhaps with an image of Usain Bolt racing amateurs. This corresponds to winning a 100m dash with the silver medalist barely reaching 75m. Perhaps an image of Michael Phelps finishing the race while no one else has even got to the last turn yet. Jack Sparrow running on the beach in front of the hundreds of chasers. Mr Bean driving his car to "outrun" the Olympic runners. I don't know, making graphics is hard, this'll do:
In the BT Sport interview after the RB Leipzig game, he couldn't remember the goals, because it was all just a blur. But in the CBS interview, he listed every single miss and every single mistake he made, and how they bothered him, and how he could do better. I think that really says a lot. Forever hungry.
In the Premier League, he has scored 28 goals after 27 games of the season, and is therefore well en route to be the all-time top scorer. A thing to notice, though, is that he has only played 2118 minutes in total. Converted to 94 minute games, this sums up to about 22.5 full games. For the 26 games he has played, he averages about 81 minutes, which means that for every full (94 min) game he plays, he's subbed off after 68 minutes in the next. Without any stats to back this up; my conception is that he's subbed off early in the games where he thrives and scores for fun, while Pep keeps him on for the full 90+ minutes in games where he struggles and doesn't achieve much. If he were instead allowed to frolick on in the "easy games", these stats could look even better!
There is also a noticeable difference when he plays in the Champions League. This can of course be explained by City players being more hungry in this tournament than in the Premier League. However, I also think there's a noticeable difference in the opposing teams' approach to the games. While about 17 out of 19 PL teams are more than happy with parking the bus, and clinging on to a goalless draw, or even happy about containing "just a 0-1 loss", the CL opponents will actually open up and try to attack, which suits our viking exceptionally well. And if we go one up in the CL, our opponent isn't going to continue to lie back and be happy with a small loss, they will just open up even more, which just causes a snow ball effect where we (and Erling) just scores even more.
By the way, next in line on the all-time CL top scorer list: Gerd Müller (34), just one goal ahead of Erling (33).
Another stat I haven't seen anyone else here mention yet, is the Champions League goals to games ratio. He's absolutely run away with it, currently having 1.32 goals per game. The next on the list are:
2. Gerd Müller, 0.99 (1969–1977)
3. Ferenc Puskás, 0.88 (1956–1966)
4. José Altafini, 0.86 (1959–1976)
5. Alfredo Di Stefano, 0.84 (1955–1964)
6. Robert Lewandowski, 0.82 (2011–)
7. Lionel Messi, 0.79 (2005–)
8. Cristiano Ronaldo, 0.77 (2003–2022)
...
11. Eusébio, 0.71 (1961–1974)
12. Kylian Mbappé, 0.66 (2016–)
13. Karim Benzema, 0.60 (2005–)
A bit further down the list sits Salah at 0.56, Neymar at 0.53, Agüero at 0.52, Henry at 0.45, van Persie at 0.42, Zlatan at 0.39, Suárez at 0.37, Rooney at 0.35, ...
This is such a ridiculous feat. He's just miles and miles ahead of the rest. I wanted to make some kind of graphic to illustrate this, as it's really hard to even comprehend these numbers when you just read them. Maybe just some silly graph, or perhaps with an image of Usain Bolt racing amateurs. This corresponds to winning a 100m dash with the silver medalist barely reaching 75m. Perhaps an image of Michael Phelps finishing the race while no one else has even got to the last turn yet. Jack Sparrow running on the beach in front of the hundreds of chasers. Mr Bean driving his car to "outrun" the Olympic runners. I don't know, making graphics is hard, this'll do: