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LONDON. — Erling Haaland was once a “little guy” with a buzz cut who couldn’t score for the first team of his home town side in Norway.

Now the 6ft 4in Manchester City striker is football’s most deadly predator, breaking the English Premier League goal-scoring record with seven games to spare.

With his long blonde locks lapping his shoulders, he fired home against Arsenal on Wednesday to notch up 33 English Premier League strikes.

In all, he’s scored 49 times on his debut season in England. On Twitter, former Five Live presenter Peter Allen branded City “a petrodollar powered juggernaut driven by a Nordic goal monster easily beating everyone”.

But even those who aren’t fans can admire the work that has gone into his transformation from a lanky teen to Viking marauder.

Here, Grant Rollings looks at how the 22-year-old became a goal-scoring machine.

Calorie-controlled killer

It is hard to believe now but as a baby Erling was a small, thin boy. Over the years he has worked hard to bulk up his 6ft 4in tall frame.

He eats his dad’s home-made lasagne before every home game, wolfs down cow’s heart and liver and drinks milk laced with kale, which he calls “my magic potion”, to maintain a 6 000-calorie-a-day diet.

Erling also pays for his own chef, who cooks up a Cristiano Ronaldo-inspired lunch of boiled fish and vegetables.

The young player’s development was undermined by growth spurts which meant he suffered injuries. To prevent them, he installed a £50 000 walk-in cryotherapy chamber in house in Cheshire and takes regular ice baths.

He spends hours in the gym every day honing his six-pack, earning him the nickname The Terminator.

It has paid off because defenders bounce off the powerful player when they try to bring him down. 

Man City manager Pep Guardiola called the Norwegian a “machine”.

Nearly two million rival fans signed a petition calling for Erling to be deported because he’s a “robot.” Not a Jack the Lad Erling is very different from City’s most expensive-ever signing, £100million England forward Jack Grealish.

While Jack is often seen out on the town with his pals and girlfriend, the Norwegian keeps a low profile with his 19-year-old girlfriend Isabel Haugseng Johansen.

It was during a trip back home to Scandinavia around two years ago that he fell for Isabel, who, like him, had been part of the Bryne FK team’s football academy.

Erling is not one for partying or boasting about his exploits, preferring to do his talking on the pitch. Ex-coach Alf Ingve Berntsen said: “In our part of the country we used to have a lot of farmers. People had to work very hard and not speak too much.

“So it’s in our genetics. It’s better to do the work than to talk a lot. So Erling is a typical person from our region.”

The player, though, thinks he’s been able to adapt to the laddish Premier League.

He said: “My father spent ten years in England so he kind of brought me up to have a bit of English banter.”

Since moving to Manchester last summer, though, pals back in Norway have apparently seen less of their golden boy.

Bryne player Robert Undheim says: “We see little of him. I think he has cut out a lot of people he knows and is halfway friends with.

“But he has a very good team around him that is easy to relate to. That makes a lot of sense, I think.”

Self-belief in his DNA

Even though Erling was incredibly quick and skilful, few people in his home town thought he’d go on to be a superstar – apart from the player himself.

This week classmate Robert Undheim, who was replaced when a 15-year-old Erling made his debut for Bryne football club in 2016, revealed: “In high school he said he was going to be the best in the world in football.

“People made fun of him. But he meant it. One hundred per cent.”

His former coach Alfe Ingve Berntsen said: “Erling was the best when he was a little guy, but we didn’t think when I began to coach him when he was seven that he would become top scorer in the Champions League.”

Erling never scored in his 16 first team games for Bryne. But his pace attracted the attention of Manchester United legend Ole Gunnar Solskjaer when he was manager of Norwegian side Molde. 

He saw his potential and signed him as a 16-year-old, teaching the youngster how to head the ball.

He then joined Austria’s Red Bull Salzburg in 2019. A year later he moved to Borussia Dortmund in Germany, before joining Man City last summer. — The Sun.