The hat-trick for Manchester City in their 6-0 FA Cup quarter-final win over Burnley brought his total for the season to 42 - just two short of the record jointly held by Manchester United’s Ruud van Nistelrooy and Mohamed Salah of Liverpool for most goals in a season for an English top-flight club during the Premier League era,

And with what could be another 18 games still to go for City this season - if they reach the FA Cup and Champions League finals - this 22-year-old Leeds-born Norwegian, for whom City paid €60 million (£51.2 million/$64.3 million) to Borussia Dortmund last summer, could even be in the region of 60 goals.

That’s Dixie Dean territory - although the Everton legend scored his record 60 goals in the 1927-1928 season solely in 42 league matches.

Leeds-born? Well that’s because his father, Alf-Inge Haaland, was then playing Premier League football for Leeds United. Which means that Haaland junior is another of sport’s chips off the old block.

Haaland senior was an accomplished player who earned 34 Norwegian caps and also played for Nottingham Forest and Manchester City. But he was more of a defensive player, albeit he scored from time to time.

The Haalands are one of the more recent and high profile examples of a historic pattern whereby high-achieving sportsmen and women have a parent who has also achieved sporting renown, often in the same sport.

Haaland Sr would surely not cavil at the notion however that his boy has already surpassed him in terms of prowess and success.

Sometimes it goes that way.

In a career that stretched from 1952 to 1967, Italian defender Cesare Maldini won four Serie A titles and one European Cup with AC Milan and earned 14 international caps, playing in the 1962 World Cup finals.

So when his son Paolo took up the game he was following in giant footsteps. But by the time he retired in 2009 aged 41, Maldini Jr, also a defender, had won 26 trophies with AC Milan, including five European Cup/Champions Leagues, and had gained 126 caps for Italy, playing in the side that lost the 1994 World Cup final to Brazil on penalties.

The pattern of junior surpassing senior was also visible in United States baseball. Bobby Bonds was the second player in Major League Baseball history to hit 300 home runs and steal 300 bases in his career.

But his son Barry Bonds took that up a notch as he claimed the most prestigious of records - the home run record.

Bonds Jr, however, was a central figure in baseball's steroids scandal, being indicted in 2007 on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice for allegedly lying to a grand jury during the Federal Government's investigation of BALCO, manufacturers of a supposedly undetectable steroid.

After the perjury charges were dropped, Bonds was convicted of obstruction of justice in 2011, although the conviction was overturned in 2015.

More usually, however, the pattern has been that high-achievers’ sons or daughters have not quite reached the level set by their parents.

Peter Schmeichel was a veritable rock in goal for Manchester United as they won the League, FA Cup and Champions League treble in 1999, and he also played for Norway as they became shock late entrants and then winners of the UEFA Euro 1992 competition.

His son Kasper, now 36, has also had a top-class goalkeeping career, playing for Manchester City, Leeds United and Leicester City and amassing 89 international caps. His trophy cabinet may not be as full as that of his dad’s - but in 2021 he had the unique honour of captaining Leicester City to their first FA Cup final win as they beat Chelsea 1-0, with Schmeichel making two hugely important saves.

That broad pattern was replicated in motorsport, where Mario Andretti, over a four-decade career, won four IndyCar Championships and a Formula One title, becoming the only driver to win the Indianapolis 500, the Daytona 500 and the Formula One World Championship.

But his son Michael also made an indelible mark in motorsport history as he followed in his father's footsteps in capturing the 1991 IndyCar title, a season in which he won a record eight races.

British driver Graham Hill won two Formula One Championships and was runner-up three times in a career that lasted from 1958 to 1975. But in 1996 his son Damon emulated him by securing an F1 Championship of his own, becoming the first man to emulate their father in so doing.

Gordie Howe established himself as one of the greatest ice hockey players of all time in a career that lasted from 1946 to 1980, during which time he was a four-time Stanley Cup winner and a six-time Hart Memorial Trophy winner.

Son Mark couldn’t quite match that on the ice, but he still enjoyed a phenomenal career and joined his father in the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2011.

Bobby Hull was another tough act to follow in ice hockey after a career in which he was elected to the National Hockey League All-Star First Team 10 times, won the Art Ross Trophy three times and won the Hart Trophy twice.

But son Brett duly followed, finishing his career as the third top-scorer in NHL history and tied with the great Wayne Gretzky for the most game-winning playoff goals.

Back to football - and the jury is still out on whether father or son will end with the highest honours in the case of Lilian and Marcus Thuram.

Lilian helped France win the FIFA World Cup in 1998, but when France reached the most recent final last year his son Marcus came on as a substitute.

France lost the final on penalties to Argentina - but at 25, Marcus could have many honours still ahead of him.

Similar familial patterns are observable in athletics.

At the 1948 London Olympics, Hungary’s Imre Nemeth won the men’s hammer throw, and four years later he added Olympic bronze at the 1952 Helsinki Games.

Twenty-eight years after his London win, his son Miklos earned another Olympic gold for Hungary - this time in the javelin, where he set a world record of 94.58 metres at the Montreal Games, a mark that stood until 1980.

With three Olympic discus titles - from the Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004 Olympics - and a bronze at Beijing 2008, plus two world titles, Lithuania’s Virgilijus Alekna set a dauntingly high bar for his athlete son, Mykolas.

But the latter is clearly made of similar stuff. Last summer, aged 19, Mykolas became the youngest world discus medallist in history as he won silver at Oregon22, and he went on to become the youngest winner of the European title with a championship record of 69.78 metres in Munich.

Last summer also marked a golden performance by Eilish McColgan, whose inspirational late run at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games saw her earn the women’s 10,000m title, just as her mother Liz had done at the Edinburgh 1986 and Auckland 1990 Commonwealth Games.

Liz went on to win Olympic silver in 1988 and the world title in Tokyo in 1991 before going on to a marathon career in which she earned victories in London and New York.

But at 32, Eilish is still adding to her accomplishments. Earlier this month in Colorado she bettered Paula Radcliffe’s 21-year-old British 10,000m record by 0.23sec as she recorded 30min 00.86sec.

That was almost a minute faster than her mother’s 1991 UK record of 30:57.07.

Earlier this month in Istanbul I was able to witness another significant achievement by a female athlete whose mother excelled before her in the same discipline.

In a hugely competitive women’s long jump at the European Athletics Indoor Championships, with her sixth and final effort, 20-year-old Larissa Iapichino came within three centimetres of the gold-winning 7.00 metres mark set by Britain’s Jasmin Sawyers, taking silver with a national indoor record of 6.97m.

It was another significant marker in the career of an athlete who emerged to prominence with a world under-20 record of 6.91m in 2021.

But she still has a way to go to surpass her mum, Slough-born Fiona May, whose own long jump career saw her win two Olympic silver and two world titles for Italy after she had married Gianni Iapichino, who now coaches their daughter.

Despite her huge leap forward in the Atakoy Arena, Iapichino still needs to find another 14cm to match her mother’s lifetime best….