Ranking Premier League teams by their top three goalscorers
Three, as everyone knows, is the magic number. Here, we’ve decided to add up the total goals scored by each team’s top three goalscorers this season mainly to highlight the absolutely absurd margin by which Liverpool dominate this specific arbitrary metric. Enjoy.
20. Norwich – 11 goals
Teemu Pukki 8, Josh Sargent 2, Andrew Omobamidele 1
A six-way tie for third spot on this list tells you much about why Norwich are getting relegated again. Solid effort once more from Pukki, while Sargent scored both his goals in the space of 23 silly minutes at Watford in January. Normal service has since been resumed.
18=. Burnley – 12 goals
Maxwel Cornet 6, Chris Wood 3, Ben Mee 3
Cornet is admittedly the least Burnley player to represent the club in the Premier League era but everything else here is firmly on brand, from the overall number of goals, to the presence of a centre-back and Chris Wood remaining a mainstay whenever Burnley come up in a feature even after leaving the club.
18=. Everton – 12 goals
Demarai Gray 5, Richarlison 4, Dominic Calvert-Lewin 3
The fella in third has only played 10 games because of injury and their leading scorer hasn’t got a Premier League goal this year. You’d look at these numbers and think Everton were having a crap season or something. At least one of these will also be sold in the summer, apparently, just to add another misting of piss to those Everton chips.
17. Newcastle – 13 goals
Callum Wilson 6, Allan Saint-Maximin 5, Kieran Trippier 2
Clearly now a far better side than they were with relegation worries now but a distant memory, but their sheer dreadfulness for much of the campaign lives on in these numbers. Trippier’s two goals in just 318 minutes of Premier League action after his move from Atleti put him top of the pile in a five-way scramble for third spot on the list. The other four – Ryan Fraser, Joelinton, Joe Willock and Jonjo Shelvey – have all played at least 1000 minutes more.
16. Wolves – 15 goals
Raul Jimenez 6, Hee-chan Hwang 5, Ruben Neves 4
The first misleading entry on the list with Wolves currently eighth in the league and likely to remain there at worst given a 10-point cushion over their nearest pursuers. But Wolves’ season has been built on stinginess at the back rather than the free flow of goals at the other end. Which is just as well, really.
15. Brighton – 16 goals
Neal Maupay 8, Alexis Mac Allister 4, Leandro Trossard 4
Maupay has a couple of times this season threatened to break Brighton out of their perennial xG banter role but he and they have reverted entirely to type as the season has worn on. They’ve lost their last four games with just a single goal scored and still have to play six of the top eight in their nine remaining games.
13=. Brentford – 18 goals
Ivan Toney 11, Yoane Wissa 4, Bryan Mbeumo 3
Harry Kane is the only Englishman with more Premier League goals than Toney, and even then just barely. Five of those Toney goals coming in Christian Eriksen’s two starts is no coincidence, nor is the fact those games were against Norwich and Burnley.
13=. Aston Villa – 18 goals
Ollie Watkins 7, Jacob Ramsey 6, Danny Ings 5
It’s one of the more even spreads of goals, that. Which is about the only thing it’s got going for it really. We all thought Danny Ings was a right shrewd bit of work, didn’t we? Nobody is ever right about transfers. Especially us.
10=. Watford – 19 goals
Emmanuel Dennis 9, Ismaila Sarr 5, Cucho Hernandez 5
They’ve had their moments, have Watford. Just not enough of them. At least two of these three will surely be in the Premier League next season even if Watford aren’t.
10=. Leeds – 19 goals
Raphinha 9, Jack Harrison 5, Rodrigo 5
You can really spot the teams that can’t defend among those in mid-table on this particular list, huh. Patrick Bamford has been a big miss this season, but trying to make up for his absence could seem like a walk in the park compared to what Leeds might face if/when Raphinha leaves.
10=. Southampton – 19 goals
Che Adams 7, James Ward-Prowse 6, Armando Broja 6
Agonisingly close to being the only team with a perfectly even split, but big show-off Che Adams had to get a seventh goal, didn’t he? Sometimes you worry about what motivates these Premier League big shots, you really do.
9. Chelsea – 20 goals
Mason Mount 8, Jorginho 6, Kai Havertz 6
Into the 20s we go, and a shock result for Chelsea in many ways. Languishing in mid-table here but flying in a different feature about teams with the most number of players who have three or more Premier League goals this season. Chelsea have 10 of those. Here, though, they’re struggling. The £100m man Romelu Lukaku doesn’t even make this top three, while five of top scorer Mount’s goals have come against Norwich and Watford with a couple more against Everton and Leeds. The other was against West Ham, which is fair enough.
8. West Ham – 22 goals
Jarrod Bowen 8, Michail Antonio 8, Said Benrahma 6
And talking of West Ham, here they are. Another goal-sharing squad who have a genuine crack of securing a top-seven finish without a single player reaching double figures. Didn’t even know that was a thing teams could aim for, did you? Is now.
6=. Crystal Palace – 23 goals
Wilfried Zaha 9, Conor Gallagher 8, Odsonne Edouard 6
Palace really can be a lot of fun these days when they get it right. And that’s with Eberechi Eze restricted to a bit-part role.
6=. Arsenal – 23 goals
Bukayo Saka 9, Emile Smith Rowe 9, Gabriel Martinelli 5
Can they finish in the top four without Saka or Smith Rowe getting another goal? Probably not, which is a shame, because finishing in the top four without any player reaching double figures would be even better than West Ham’s attempt to finish seventh that way. Nevertheless, chalk up the Gunners as another example of “lots of players scoring some goals generally works better than one or two scoring lots” while making side-eyes across north London.
5. Leicester – 24 goals
Jamie Vardy 10, James Maddison 8, Youri Tielemans 6
Vardy starting the season with seven goals in eight games feels like something that didn’t actually happen but apparently it did. Has scored against only Watford and Burnley since then and missed eight of Leicester’s last 10 games through assorted injuries that inevitably raise alarm bells given 35 is about 732 years old in Premier League striker years.
4. Manchester United – 26 goals
Cristiano Ronaldo 12, Bruno Fernandes 9, Mason Greenwood 5
The unsolvable philosophical conundrum of whether Ronaldo’s output is worth it given the negative impact on Bruno Fernandes’ numbers.
3. Tottenham – 27 goals
Heung-min Son 13, Harry Kane 12, Steven Bergwijn 2
Just fantastically silly numbers all round to put Spurs in third here. Kane may well end the season second on the top scorer list despite spending the first third of it in a transfer huff, while his rapport with Son is now back to absurd levels. But we already know all about those two elite players who have foolishly decided to spend the peak years of their careers at such a silly football club – far more fun to be had looking beyond those two at the six-way tie for third on a mere two goals. Only Norwich have a worse third top scorer. Bergwijn’s injury-time nonsense at Leicester gets him the nod for us ahead of January signing Dejan Kulusevski, while the use of “injury-time” and “January signing” both serve to highlight the paucity of Lucas Moura’s Premier League output this season.
2. Manchester City – 29 goals
Raheem Sterling 10, Riyad Mahrez 10, Kevin De Bruyne 9
A set of numbers from a set of players that perfectly encapsulates Manchester City’s progression beyond such archaic concepts as ‘striker’. Who needs a couple of fellas scoring 20 each when you’ve got six who’ll share 50 between them? We fully expect Sterling, Mahrez and De Bruyne to end the season with a perfectly even split of goals. Let’s go for… 12 each. Sounds about right.
1. Liverpool – 45 goals
Mohamed Salah 20, Diogo Jota 13, Sadio Mane 12
Haha, what? Just an absurd difference to literally everyone else. There are only six players with 12 or more goals in the Premier League this season, and three of them are at the same club. They would still come out top on this list even if you only counted Salah and Jota’s goals. Salah has scored as many league goals this season as Chelsea’s top three put together. The 45 scored by Salah, Jota and Mane alone is one more than Arsenal in total and at least three more than any side outside the top seven has managed. If the general trend is for lots of players scoring some goals being more useful than one or two scoring lots of goals, Liverpool make a compelling case for ‘lots of players scoring lots of goals’ and frankly the other teams are foolish not to have tried it.