As we fly towards the end of the club footballing season across Europe, some players have not let up despite many leagues already being over and much silverware already out of reach. One of these players to not have slowed down in particular, and a new entrant to the NextGoalWinner Player of the Month awards, is the goal scoring machine and possible half-man half-robot, Mr Erling Haaland. The Dortmund striker has been absolutely unstoppable since he arrived on many football fans’ radars, and despite only being in Germany for a year and a half, it feels like he is truly a part of the furniture, and a real superstar already at just 20 years of age.

In the month of April, Haaland has again been on form for Dortmund, scoring 4 and bagging 1 assist in his 5 Bundesliga games. While these aren’t even the best stats of Haaland’s season, it is a truly deserved recognition for the star striker who is not even at the start of his peak from what I have seen every time I watch him. He has become a reason why I tune in most weeks to watch Dortmund, and his link-up with the likes of Sancho, Reus, Hazard etc is a sight to behold. So, allow me to go through the performances in April 2021, and hopefully explain why he is so deserved of this months’ award.

Match By Match

April 3rd: Borussia Dortmund 1-2 Eintracht Frankfurt – Dortmund actually stumbled at the start of the month with a defeat to Frankfurt in the opening few days. In quite a surprising result, Dortmund and Haaland couldn’t enforce themselves into the game as they suffered an early o.g. to put them on the back foot. Although Hummels bagged an equaliser, it wasn’t enough, and Silva bagged the winner during the final few minutes. For Haaland, he was quite ineffective, and despite having 4 attempts on goal, couldn’t get the finish and suffered his worst performance of the month, but things were certainly about to get better.

April 10th: VBF Stuttgart 2-3 Borussia Dortmund – After their stumbling opener, they got back on track (just about) with the win over Stuttgart. In this one, it was Haaland who helped secured the winner, not getting himself on the scoresheet but instead setting up the winner for Knauff. As a top striker who scores for fun, seeing him get assists at crucial times like this just adds to the brilliance of this young superstar.

April 18th: Borussia Dortmund 4-1 Werder Bremen – After 2 games this month without scoring, Haaland ‘took this personally’ as he went and scored twice in the space of 5 minutes to put the game well out of the reach of Werder Bremen. With a goal from the spot and the second from open play, Haaland added to his impressive goal tally this season and got his recent performances back on track. earning a rating of 8.68/10 this game was his second best performance of the month, and a major contributor to him achieving this months’ award.

April 21st: Borussia Dortmund 2-0 Union Berlin – The wins kept coming for Dortmund and Haaland, and although again in this one he wasn’t on the scoresheet, or even contributing with an assist, he was a real menace to the Union defence as he got off 6 attempts at goal as he peppered the opposition goal. He could have added a goal from the spot, however his penalty was saved and despite this being early in the game, it didn’t prevent his side from taking all 3 points and being dominant once again. A personal stumbling block arguably, however he was a real asset to his side despite the penalty miss.

April 24th: Wolfsburg 0-2 Borussia Dortmund – In the month’s final game, Haaland was back with a vengeance as he bagged another brace to more than make up for the penalty miss in the previous match. With his goals being the whole difference between the two sides, and with Dortmund going down to 10 men, Haaland showed his ability to drag his side to results and really be the talismanic striker, and create moments that Dortmund fans will hold in their hearts. With an 8.7/10, it was his top performance of the whole month and rightly so, and with his 3rd and 4th goals in the month, he helped secure the 4th win on the bounce and push on for the Champions League spots in the Bundesliga.