Courtesy: Forbes, @CrewsMat19
Ferran Torres scored a hat-trick to help newly crowned champion Manchester City win a record 12th straight away game in the English Premier League, 4-3 at Newcastle on Friday.
The Spain winger is now the club’s youngest ever treble scorer under manager Pep Guardiola. When Ferran Torres scored a memorable hat-trick for Manchester City against Newcastle on Friday, he broke a record previously held by Lionel Messi.
Messi, the Argentine superstar, was 22 years and 200 days old when he scored a hat-trick in a 5-0 La Liga victory for Guardiola’s Barcelona over Tenerife in 2010. Fast forward 11 years, and Torres is 125 days younger than Messi, with all three of his goals coming in a stunning 24-minute spell either side of half-time.
That’s 13 goals in his debut season at City for the Spaniard, who is naturally a winger but has filled in as a striker at times when Aguero and Gabriel Jesus have been unavailable. Guardiola was ecstatic after the game about Torres’ potential, saying he could “smell” where the goal was. Guardiola described him as young and clinical.
“He was brought in as a winger, but maybe we should think of him as a striker.” – Pep Guardiola
Torres, signed from Valencia as one of Spain’s top talents, is only three goals behind City’s leading scorer, Ilkay Gundogan, this season.
The city now has a new English record of 12 consecutive away league victories and a 13-point lead at the top of the table. They have two more Premier League games remaining against Brighton and Everton before the Champions League final against Chelsea on May 29 in Lisbon.
With his three goals against Newcastle on Friday, Ferran Torres became the youngest player to ever score a league hat-trick under Pep Guardiola 💪
The previous record holder? Lionel Messi 🐐 pic.twitter.com/jTcyfCTzhv
— Goal (@goal) May 14, 2021