The Norwegian’s sublime finish midway through the second half, which doubled our advantage after Nathan Ake’s header opener, brought up 35 league goals for the season for Haaland, beating the long-standing record of 34 shared by Alan Shearer and Andrew Cole.
It was a night of special landmarks at the Etihad with substitute Phil Foden’s spectacular late effort also registering the 1000th goal of Guardiola’s City reign.
51 of those have now come from Haaland in his remarkable debut season at City with the 22-year-old afforded a special guard of honour at full time by staff and colleagues in honour of his latest amazing record.
And reflecting on his spectacular achievement after a hard-fought win over the Hammers, which restored our lead at the top of the table, Guardiola couldn’t hide his admiration for Haaland’s staggering feats.
“He deserved it (the guard of honour), said Pep. “All the team deserved it. Erling is a special striker. Yes, we are very pleased for him. He’s a joy to work and to be with him.
“Everyone is happy to have him with us. This record will be broken again. Maybe by him in the future or by another one. But he will score a lot of goals.
“When there is a special occasion, we have to show how special it is.
“He has beaten incredible top strikers - Shearer and Cole. It’s special.
“At the end when you buy a player, with Erling we knew he scored everywhere.
“We had to start to work, see the process, see him understand what we do, the players understand his movement, so it was a question of time, but how he adjusted, it was so quick.
“His first goals were against West Ham. He broke the record against West Ham.
“When you provide him with chances, he scores in all situations.
“Penalties. Crosses. Combinations. Transitions. He can do many, many things.
“That’s why he scored a lot of goals.
“I have the feeling he wants to score goals because of his mentality.
“I think he is so calm. He wants to score more, more, more.
“He thinks he will score in the next minute, the next action. This is so positive. I learnt a lot from this type of mentality. The ambition is there otherwise he would not score here, Dortmund and Salzburg.”
The City boss also reflected on the importance of Wednesday night’s victory, with City moving top overtaking Arsenal by a point and having a game in hand.
We have the chance to extend that lead to four when we play host to Leeds on Saturday before the Gunners travel to Newcastle on Sunday.
However, the boss insisted everything was still to play for in terms of the title race.
“I said after Arsenal, I said it is not over. They will not give up,” Pep reiterated.
“I know Mikel (Arteta) how competitive he is.
“Arsenal is one of the historical teams. They will be there. We were quite stable and created enough chances to win the game.
“Now we have the opportunity on Saturday to go four points in front. They play on Sunday against Newcastle. (We will take it) Game by game.”
