Erling Haaland told ‘10 years is a very long time’ after signing decade-long contract with Man City as club legend casts doubt on ‘world’s No.1 striker’ seeing out deal

Premier League champions City have moved to tie their prolific Norwegian striker down to a deal that is due to run until the summer of 2034. Haaland is considered to be a key part of present and future plans at the Etihad Stadium.

It is easy to see why City would want such terms in place, with the 24-year-old frontman hitting 118 goals through 136 appearances. Haaland has collected major honours at home and abroad, but has also generated plenty of transfer talk when it comes to supposed interest from Real Madrid and Barcelona.

Quizzed on whether Haaland will see out a decade-long deal in Manchester, former City captain Richard Dunne – speaking in association with William Hill Vegas – told GOAL: “It’s unheard of, a contract that length. It’s exceptional that he’s got something like that.

“I suppose the couple of seasons that he’s had have proven what he can do. It’s a case of can he do it for that length of time? I’m sure he can, but things change an awful lot in football and 10 years is a very long time.

“If he’s still there, brilliant. At the moment he’s the No.1 striker in world football. If City can keep him, that’s amazing. But also for the Premier League, to have him for that amount of time. Whether he actually goes and sees that deal out remains to be seen.”

If Haaland were to hang around at City, then he will likely rewrite the history books. Pressed on the possibility of every record being broken if 10 more years are spent at the Etihad, Dunne added: “You would imagine. On paper, yeah. Given what he’s done so far, yes. But, he still has to score nearly 30 goals every season. It’s still a huge ask and an incredible achievement what he’s doing at the moment.

“It looks like he’s the one that would break [Alan] Shearer’s record and set records that would never be beaten again. To keep that consistency over a period of time isn’t the easiest. We have seen it this season, where he has probably not got the goals that he expected. Man City haven’t had the season that they would’ve expected.

“It will happen over the course of the next 10 years and might not happen again. It’s hard but any man playing football at the moment that you thought had a chance of breaking all the records, he is certainly the one. Given the amount of time that he is hopefully going to be there, he’s got a real opportunity to do it.”

Haaland has 83 Premier League goals to his name at present, with Shearer’s benchmark sitting at 260. City will hope to see their fearsome No.9 chase down that target, providing that a long-running Financial Fair Play case and supposed admiring glances from La Liga do not deliver an untimely transfer at some point down the line.