Harry Kane is Tottenham’s all-time leading goalscorer after his winning goal against Manchester City took him past Jimmy Greaves’ Spurs tally of 266. And now Mo Salah has done his thing to beat Robbie Fowler’s Premier League record.
As the following list shows, Premier League records fall pretty regularly (often for very obvious and newly-promoted reasons) but those all-time records are far rarer beasts. And yes, we do know how many trophies Harry Kane has won, but feel free to ask away in the comments there. It remains a deeply profound and original observation.
Arsenal
Top Premier League goalscorer: Thierry Henry (175 goals in 258 games)
Top all-time goalscorer: Thierry Henry (228 goals in 377 games)
Nearest current challenger: Bukayo Saka (27 Prem goals, 34 all-time)
Yeah, these records are pretty safe for a while we reckon. Saka is great and we love him, but he has 27 Premier League goals and 34 goals in 167 all-competition appearances. At least he’s got time on his side.
Aston Villa
Top Premier League goalscorer: Gabriel Agbonlahor (74 goals in 322 games)
Top all-time goalscorer: Billy Walker (244 goals in 531 games)
Nearest current challengers: Ollie Watkins (34 Prem goals), Ashley Young (39 all-time)
The all-time record isn’t going anywhere any time soon, and unlike Saka, time is not on the side of the increasingly ironically named Young. Ollie Watkins is a more live challenger to mediocre striker turned talkSPORT gobshite-in-chief Agbonlahor’s unremarkable Premier League benchmark.
Bournemouth
Top Premier League goalscorer: Josh King (48 goals in 151 games)
Top all-time goalscorer: Ron Eyre (229 goals in 378 games)
Nearest current challenger: Philip Billing (7 PL goals) Dominic Solanke (54 all-time)
Philip Billing really should not be scoring more goals than any Bournemouth striker but that’s where we are…a long bloody way away from that King record. And a lot, lot further from Eyre.
Brentford
Top Premier League goalscorer: Ivan Toney (27 goals in 56 games)
Top all-time goalscorer: Jim Towers (163 goals in 282 games)
Nearest current challenger: Toney (63 all-time)
The Premier League record is pretty safe even if Toney does find himself out of action for an extended spell – Yoane Wissa is next on the list. But at 26 years old and with 63 goals in 114 games for the club already, Towers’ long-standing all-time record is certainly not out of Toney’s reach if he hangs around.
Brighton
Top Premier League goalscorer: Glenn Murray (26 goals in 96 games) and Neal Maupay (26 goals in 102 games)
Top all-time goalscorer: Tommy Cook (123 goals in 209 games)
Nearest current challenger: Pascal Gross (23 Prem goals, 24 all-time)
‘As long as Trossard doesn’t do anything stupid like join Spurs this month,’ read a previous iteration of this feature, ‘then it’s only a matter of time before he takes over from deadly duo Murray and Maupay at the top of the Brighton Premier League charts. He’s only one behind.’ And there he will remain. Joining Arsenal is at least less stupid than joining Spurs, we suppose. So the baton passes to Pascal Gross.
Tommy Cook’s numbers aren’t under much threat and a mere 123 goals for the club’s all-time record scorer feels remarkably on brand despite (because of?) being a record that has stood for 100 years.
Chelsea
Top Premier League goalscorer: Frank Lampard (147 goals in 429 games)
Top all-time goalscorer: Frank Lampard (211 goals in 648 games)
Nearest current challenger: Mason Mount (27 Prem goals, 33 all-time)
Having a midfielder as your all-time leading goalscorer is a daftness, but alas it is one Chelsea will not be putting right any time soon. Even if there is to be a record-breaker from within the current squad (and there probably isn’t) then it will be Frank Lampard’s mini-me Mason Mount who does it.
Crystal Palace
Top Premier League goalscorer: Wilfried Zaha (67 goals in 285 games)
Top all-time goalscorer: Peter Simpson (165 goals in 195 games)
Nearest current challenger: Jeffrey Schlupp (14 Prem goals), Zaha (89 all-time)
Yeah, Zaha’s pretty safe on the Premier League front here. Schlupp has 14 Premier League goals for Palace. Zaha himself is unlikely to break Simpson’s overall number, but he could make his way further up from his current 10th spot on Palace’s all-time list. Ian Wright is less than 30 goals away in third…
Everton
Top Premier League goalscorer: Romelu Lukaku (68 goals in 141 games)
Top all-time goalscorer: Dixie Dean (386 goals in 433 games)
Nearest current challenger: Dominic Calvert-Lewin (46 Prem goals, 59 all-time)
Absolutely lovely slice of Everton, this, combining in their two records perhaps the least and most impressive numbers of the whole feature. The fact Everton have been knocking around the Premier League for the entirety of its existence without anyone ever managing to rack up anywhere close to 100 goals is faintly ludicrous, while Dixie Dean’s is one of all football’s least breakable records.
The lesser-spotted Calvert-Lewin could potentially have a reasonable crack at knocking Lukaku off his perch, having managed 46 Premier League goals for the Toffees to date. That already puts him fourth on that list, which again is very silly given they have a full 30-year Premier League history to call upon.
Fulham
Top Premier League goalscorer: Clint Dempsey (50 goals in 184 games)
Top all-time goalscorer: Gordon Davies (178 goals in 450 games)
Nearest current challenger: Aleksandar Mitrovic (25 Prem goals, 107 all-time)
Mitrovic is halfway to Dempsey’s record and firmly on course to go past Steed Malbranque’s 32 and claim second spot by season’s end. One more season and Dempsey’s in peril, you’d imagine. Mitrovic is 28 and seems pretty happy and settled at Fulham; 178 isn’t impossible, is it?
Leeds
Top Premier League goalscorer: Mark Viduka (59 goals in 130 games)
Top all-time goalscorer: Peter Lorimer (238 goals in 703 games)
Nearest current challenger: Rodrigo (23 Prem goals, 25 all-time)
That Viduka record isn’t entirely off Rodrigo’s radar. Couple of good seasons. Don’t get relegated, though. Or move to another club. That would f**k it right up. Nobody’s bothering Lorimer for the foreseeable anyway.
Leicester
Top Premier League goalscorer: Jamie Vardy (134 goals in 291 games)
Top all-time goalscorer: Arthur Chandler (273 goals in 419 games)
Nearest current challenger: Jamie Vardy (168 all-time goals), James Maddison (42 Prem goals)
Maddison is actually already second on Leicester’s Premier League list despite being almost a hundred adrift of the main man. Emile Heskey scoring a mere 33 Premier League goals for Leicester is somehow both surprising yet enormously on-brand. Five of Leicester’s top 10 Premier League scorers are in the current squad, which seems a lot for a team with a relatively long history in the league. Vardy isn’t getting another 105 goals, is he?
Liverpool
Top Premier League goalscorer: Mohamed Salah (129 goals in 206 games)
Top all-time goalscorer: Ian Rush (346 goals in 660 games)
Nearest current challenger: Mohamed Salah (178 all-time)
That Premier League record has gone in breathtaking fashion in a 7-0 win over Manchester United, but Ian Rush isn’t going anywhere. The all-time top five is within range for Salah this season, though. Fifth spot is currently held by Steven Gerrard and his 186 often extremely massive and memorable goals.
Manchester City
Top Premier League goalscorer: Sergio Aguero (184 goals in 275 games)
Top all-time goalscorer: Sergio Aguero (260 goals in 390 games)
Nearest current challenger: Kevin De Bruyne (61 Prem goals, 91 all-time)
Aguero’s numbers are the sorts of records that could and should stand for decades or centuries, but Erling Haaland may crush them beneath his massive robotic feet in about five years’ time if he hangs around Manchester that long. Which he probably won’t.
Manchester United
Top Premier League goalscorer: Wayne Rooney (183 goals in 393 games)
Top all-time goalscorer: Wayne Rooney (253 goals in 559 games)
Nearest current challenger: Marcus Rashford (73 Prem goals, 119 all-time)
At least we don’t have to pretend Cristiano Ronaldo is technically the closest current challenger anymore. Thanks, Piers! But imagine how many more goals Rashford would have if he’d just stuck to football, eh readers?
Newcastle United
Top Premier League goalscorer: Alan Shearer (148 goals in 303 games)
Top all-time goalscorer: Alan Shearer (206 goals in 405 games)
Nearest current challenger: Callum Wilson (27 Prem goals, 27 all-time)
Maybe Newcastle’s new era will generate a challenger to Wor Al’s record. Maybe they’ll find a Sergio Aguero of their very own. With all due respect to Callum Wilson – and indeed the new, improved Miguel Almiron – that challenger is not to be found within the current squad.
Nottingham Forest
Top Premier League goalscorer: Bryan Roy (24 goals in 85 games)
Top all-time goalscorer: Grenville Morris (217 goals in 459 games)
Nearest current challenger: Brennan Johnson (7 Prem goals), Brennan Johnson (28 all-time goals)
Yer da may think Forest are a proper Premier League team who should always be there, but they rarely are. Bryan Roy! Nobody’s beating that 24 goals this season anyway. Nobody has got close to Grenville Morris’ record for 110 years, and most probably nobody will for another 110.
Southampton
Top Premier League goalscorer: Matt Le Tissier (100 goals in 270 games)
Top all-time goalscorer: Mick Channon (228 goals in 602 games)
Nearest current challenger: James Ward-Prowse (46 Prem goals, 52 all-time)
Footballer turned racehorse trainer Mick Channon is another pretty cosy leading all-time scorer, while James Ward-Prowse is going to have to score an awful lot of free-kicks before Southampton get themselves relegated if he’s going to challenge the Premier League record of heroic truth-teller/insane conspiracy theorist Matt Le Tissier. We very much enjoy that there is a dispute over whether he has 100 or 101 Premier League goals – the Premier League insist 100 and it’s kind of up to them, we guess – because we imagine the man himself has a theory about it that the wokerati simply aren’t ready for.
Tottenham
Top Premier League goalscorer: Harry Kane (203 goals in 306 games)
Top all-time goalscorer: Harry Kane (270 goals in 424 games)
Nearest current challenger: Son Heung-min (99 Prem goals, 141 all-time)
There is of course no Premier League challenge to Kane, who is the fastest man to 200 goals in the competition (Shearer and Rooney are the only other members of the 200 club anyway) and the first player ever to score 200 Premier League goals for a single club. Although Son-Heung min’s goal against Palace – only his fourth of a difficult season – did take him level with Teddy Sheringham in second place on 97. The nervous 90s have been a bit of a thing for Spurs strikers in the Premier League, with Robbie Keane and Jermain Defoe both finishing up on 91 goals.
What we’ve learned through this feature, though, is that it turns out all-time club goalscoring records don’t get broken very often, and Greaves’ number was among the more impressive. Kane is the only current player to hold such a record in the Premier League, and Spurs only the sixth current top-flight club to have that record broken in the Premier League era.
West Ham
Top Premier League goalscorer: Michail Antonio (59 goals in 218 games)
Top all-time goalscorer: Vic Watson (297 goals in 505 games)
Nearest current challenger: Jarrod Bowen (25, Prem), Michail Antonio (70 all-time)
Fifty-nine really doesn’t seem like it should be enough, but none of their decent goalscorers really hung around long enough, did they? Mark Noble certainly hung around long enough, which is why he’s joint second on the list with a mere 47. Jarrod Bowen (25) could have a decent crack at that if he isn’t spirited away and West Ham manage to stay up. Vic Watson is probably safe for a while.
Wolves
Top Premier League goalscorer: Raul Jimenez (40 goals in 129 games)
Top all-time goalscorer: Steve Bull (306 goals in 561 games)
Nearest current challenger: Jimenez (57 all-time)
You can’t beat a bit of Bully.