The 23-year-old has scored 3 hats in the Premier League to tie Cristiano Ronaldo, setting 6 records
In a key match in the 31st round of the English Premier League that ended in the early morning of April 4, Beijing time, defending champion Manchester City defeated Aston Villa 4-1 at home. With Haaland rested, Manchester City's "Prince" Foden stepped up and scored a hat-trick to become the team's number one contributor to Villa's revenge.
In the last round of the league, Manchester City was forced to draw by Arsenal at home, and let Arsenal leave at home for the first time in recent years. In this round of the game, Guardiola chose to make some adjustments to the starting lineup, De Bruyne and Haaland were on the bench, and "Prince" Foden was entrusted with the heavy responsibility of playing as a forward midfielder, ambushed behind Alvarez.
Rodri broke the icelock in the opening kick-off, and although the visiting Villa were equalised by Duran, Foden took over the game completely. He took a direct free-kick to put City back in the lead, and then received an assist from Rodri to make it 3-1.
In the 70th minute, Foden scored the best goal of the game, he made a steal and blasted a world wave directly from the edge of the penalty area, helping the team to lead 4-1 and completely killing the suspense of the game. After scoring a hat-trick, Foden also set a number of records.
For starters, Foden has scored 21 goals and 10 assists in all competitions this season. For the first time in his career, he scored more than 20 goals in a single season, and he has also been involved in more than 30 goals this season. He is also one of only five players in Europe's top five leagues who can achieve 20 goals and 10 assists. Thirdly, Foden is the only England player to have been directly involved in more than 30 goals this season without including a single penalty.
Fourth, it was Foden's first direct free-kick goal in his career. Fifth, it was Foden's third hat-trick in the Premier League, which equalled the number of hat-tricks scored by Cristiano Ronaldo, Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba in the Premier League. Sixth, there are only four players in the history of the Premier League who have scored more hat-tricks before the age of 24, namely Fowler (7), Owen (7), Kane (6), Haaland (5), and Foden still has a chance to close them.
Although Manchester City's dominance in the league has declined this season, and the performance of aces Haaland and De Bruyne has also raised questions, with the presence of Foden, whose value has risen to 130 million euros, Manchester City still maintains the possibility of hitting the "treble".