Socceroo Mo Touré scores fourth goal in a week as sizzling run for Norwich continues

Australian striker Mo Touré has earned comparisons to a young Erling Haaland, after he bounced back from a missed penalty to continue his sizzling goalscoring run with a ninth goal in just 10 games since joining English Championship side Norwich.

Touré’s fourth goal of the week, following a second hat-trick of his short Norwich career on the weekend, was a rocket that went in off the underside of the bar and set up a 2-1 win over Derby County.

The victory means the Canaries continue their rise up the table since the 22-year-old signed from Danish Superliga side Randers FC in January.

The former Adelaide United player’s red-hot form in front of goal comes as a timely boost to the Socceroos coach, Tony Popovic, as he prepares to tackle a tough group containing hosts the USA, Paraguay and Turkey at this year’s World Cup.

Before opening the scoring just after the half-hour mark at Carrow Road on Tuesday night, Touré had a golden opportunity to add to his tally from the penalty spot, but his low effort was repelled by Derby keeper Jacob Widell Zetterström.

Rather than allowing that miss to affect the rest of his performance, Touré put any disappointment to one side – a mindset that impressed Norwich coach, Philippe Clement, who said being able to recover in such a way was “a power of the strong strikers”.

“I’ve seen also strikers tremble and starting to doubt [themselves],” Clement said. “It’s not been the case with Mo until now. There will be a moment when he has several games that he doesn’t score – that’s part of being a striker.

“I saw many years ago a young Haaland playing in Salzburg and I was so impressed with him, about how he prepared his game. In the warmup, they were giving crosses and he was missing chances and then he was really angry. When he scored, he was like winning the Champions League – so happy.

“But you felt the fire in the boy. And I said to my staff, I think he was 17 or 18 or something, ‘this guy is going to have a really big future.’

“You see that’s also a quality. It’s not only technical and physical qualities, but you need to have the mental qualities to be a good player and Mo is showing really good stuff there.”

Touré, born in Guinea as a Liberian refugee before moving to Australia as a baby, burst on to the Championship scene in February with a hat-trick in his first start, having opened his account off the bench on his Norwich debut.