The 150 club: Premier League’s all-time leading strikers as Salah slides past Michael Owen
Mo Salah has become the 11th man to score 150 Premier League goals. Here’s a rundown of the full list.
11) Michael Owen – 150 goals in 326 appearances
Liverpool: 118/216
Newcastle: 26/71
Manchester United: 5/31
Stoke: 1/8
He was great and then he wasn’t. Still staggered over the line to reach 150 Premier League goals, which is 137 more than the total number of films he’s watched. Assuming he hasn’t watched any more films since 2017 when the numbers were last updated, I can’t be bothered to look it up.
10) Mo Salah – 153 goals in 251 appearances
Chelsea 2/13
Liverpool 151/238
The newest member of the 150 club and likely the last one for a while, as Raheem Sterling and Son Heung-Min are some way off. He would quite like to forget that Chelsea spell so is probably quite pleased to have hit the 150 mark for Liverpool. He is pure quality.
9) Jermain Defoe – 162 goals in 496 appearances
West Ham 18/74
Tottenham 91/276
Portsmouth 15/31
Sunderland 34/87
Bournemouth 4/28
Quite the career arc for Jermain, from young jack the lad to universally beloved statesman of the game with loads of goals in between, including perhaps most memorably five in a single half against Wigan that one time. A good egg.
8) Robbie Fowler – 163 goals in 379 appearances
Liverpool: 128/266
Leeds: 14/30
Manchester City: 21/80
Blackburn: 0/3
Almost feels wrong to count his non-Liverpool goals, somehow. Vaguely impure. Nothing against those other clubs, but Fowler was a Liverpool striker who scored goals for Liverpool. Nothing else feels quite right – even England.
7) Thierry Henry – 175 goals in 258 appearances
Arsenal: 175/258
Yeah, he was decent. Undoubtedly the most aesthetically pleasing of all the elite goalscorers.
6) Frank Lampard – 177 goals in 609 appearances
West Ham: 24/148
Chelsea 147/429
Manchester City: 6/32
A silly number of goals for someone to score when they’re not even a striker. No, but seriously, scored so very many goals for Chelsea across so very many years that they had quite literally no choice but to make him manager. Twice.
5) Sergio Aguero – 184 goals in 275 appearances
Manchester City: 184/275
Along with Kane and Henry the only member to score all their goals for a single club. They are also the three with the highest GPG ratio, all hovering around the 0.68 mark and a long way clear of the rest. They’re really good, basically, is what we’re saying here.
4) Andrew Cole – 187 goals in 414 appearances
Newcastle: 43/58
Manchester United: 93/195
Blackburn: 27/83
Fulham: 12/31
Manchester City: 9/22
Portsmouth: 3/18
Sunderland: 0/7
How come so many of these had brief and not particularly memorable stints at Manchester City? Still feels weird calling him Andrew.
3) Wayne Rooney – 208 goals in 491 appearances
Everton: 25/98
Manchester United: 183/393
Overall numbers hit by the small matter of not playing as an out-and-out striker for much of his career. But he is still only one of three players to nudge past the 200-goal mark and you would think that club will stay pretty exclusive unless Mo Salah decides to turn down the Saudi Arabian money and finish his career with Liverpool.
2) Harry Kane – 213 goals in 320 appearances
Norwich: 0/3
Tottenham 213/317
His goals-per-game ratio is second only to Thierry Henry on this list and would have been better still but for those three wasted appearances on loan at Norwich back in the days when he was still a bit bobbins. Still, 213 in 320 is not bad at all for a one-season wonder. He could go to Germany for two years, win some things, and still have a decent crack at Shearer’s record.
1) Alan Shearer – 260 goals in 441 appearances
Blackburn: 112/138
Newcastle: 148/303
Would you look at that, he’s still absolutely miles clear, isn’t he? Think how good Rooney was and for how long, and he’s still nowhere near the great man. Kane was scoring all the goals for bloody ages, before he went to Germany. Not even in the same ballpark as Big Al. And he’d be even further ahead as well if he hadn’t carelessly wasted his first 23 top-flight goals by scoring them before the Premier League was invented, thus rendering them irrelevant.