It doesn’t matter whether you have a six pack or six bellies!
MICKY QUINN says he and Haaland are cut from the same cloth… but he’s annoyed City man has broken his record
‘HE’S not better than me yet!’ Rather than welcome Erling Haaland breaking one of his goalscoring records this week, Micky Quinn is reeling off those which remain his own.
Haaland scored his ninth goal in his first five Premier League appearances when netting a hat- trick during Manchester City’s 6-0 win over Nottingham Forest on Wednesday.
Quinn’s tally, from 1992 and in the colours of the less fashionable Coventry City, was eight.
‘I’m not one of these fellas who says, “My record is there to be broken”,’ the 60-year- old tells Sportsmail. ‘B****cks! I didn’t want it to be. I’m proud of those records.
‘Anyway, he couldn’t score in every one of his first five matches, could he? I did. I also scored 10 from my first six games. He’s got to try to beat that at Aston Villa.
‘I’m going to ring Steven Gerrard and tell them to nobble him, or wherever they’re having their prematch meal, put a sleeping tablet in his tea!’
Quinn says all of this with a smile and a cackle, but he is not necessarily joking. It is that self-belief and fierce pride in their craft which separates great goalscorers from others who simply play the same position. He sees that in Haaland.
‘It doesn’t matter if you’ve got six bellies or a six pack, you will score goals with that instinct,’ says Quinn, who carried a rotund midriff through his career but was whippetlike in the box. ‘It’s born, that is. He has the same hunger I did.
‘It’s that desire to get in the box and score any type of goal and be proud of it.
‘Some strikers hardly celebrate, but this kid loves scoring goals. I scored 100 goals in training during the week and I enjoyed every one of them as much as a Saturday. He’s got that joy about him.
‘He looks the real deal. He’s powerful, robust, fast, he gets down the channels. I wasn’t one for running down channels, f*** that, I was more of a poacher.
‘But what I like about Haaland is that he’s an old-school finisher, too. He’s in the box, lurking at the far post for a tap-in. They all count the same.’
Would Quinn score goals in this City side? ‘I’ll throw that back at you — would Haaland score goals for Coventry? The names came up on TV this week of the goals scored in our first five games — Haaland, Quinn, Sergio Aguero, Diego Costa. They are in the top teams.
‘I was in a mid-table side, battling against relegation — that is why I couldn’t sustain it over a season. My supply line was being sold around me. City keeping adding to theirs! So yes, I’d score bucketloads in that City team.’
Quinn was sold by First Division Newcastle to Coventry for £250,000 in November 1992, after falling out of favour with Kevin Keegan.
‘Bobby Gould (the Coventry manager) told me, “I want you to score the goals to keep us in the Premier League”. I’m suddenly thinking, “Hold on, I had a £100 bet on Coventry to be relegated at the start of the season!”. But I kept us up — and the goal bonuses soon made up for the bet.’
In Quinn’s fifth game, the Sky Blues faced his boyhood club Liverpool at Highfield Road a week before Christmas. ‘My uncles and my dad came down. “We’ll go and see our Mick. We hope he has a good game, but we want Liverpool to smash them”. We beat them 5-1 and I scored two.
‘I walked into the players’ lounge afterwards. They’re all stood at the bar with faces as long as a horse. I said, “F*** me, you not going to congratulate your nephew? What about you, Dad?” All of them, through gritted teeth, “Oh yeah, well done”.
‘We got the minibus back to Liverpool to my dad’s pub. As I walked in, all the Everton fans were buying me a drink! I didn’t have to buy a pint all night.’
Quinn will not be toasting Haaland should he score another two at Villa Park today. But he will if he beats Andy Cole and Alan Shearer’s record of 34 goals in a Premier League campaign.
‘He will smash all manner of records if he stays injury-free,’ says Quinn. ‘But he’s a big lad, he looks like he could take a kick. He could end up being the best we’ve ever seen, he’s that good.’
Quinn, as ever, wants the last word. ‘Still didn’t score in his first five games, though.’