Top ten all-time most prolific Premier League scorers

Sarah Winterburn

Not the most goals, but the minutes per goal. And the bar is 50 goals…

 

10) Diego Costa (Chelsea)
Total goals: 52
Total minutes: 7550
Minutes per goal: 145

My word he was a brilliant bastard. But he was a brilliant bastard not wanted by the stubborn Antonio Conte. Who sends a text after a title win saying ‘Hi Diego, I hope you are well. Thanks for the season we spent together. Good luck for the next year but you are not in my plan’? Conte, that’s who. And do you know what’s impressive? One penalty. Just one penalty.

 

9) Edin Dzeko (Manchester City)
Total goals: 50
Total minutes: 7081
Minutes per goal: 142

Just don’t call him a super-sub (even though he was one). Massively underrated – any argument against Manuel Pellegrini being a great manager should start with the fact that he thought Wilfried Bony was an upgrade on Dzeko. You will not find the name of Wilfried Bony on this list.

 

8) Robin van Persie (Arsenal and Manchester United)
Total goals: 144
Total minutes: 20120
Minutes per goal: 140

Impressive longevity from the Dutchman, who basically scored a goal every other game for an increasingly poor Arsenal side before switching sides and producing a 26-goal Premier League season to drag Manchester United to their last title. It remains the last time any Manchester United striker hit the 20-goal mark.

 

7) Luis Suarez (Liverpool)
Total goals: 69
Total minutes: 9574
Minutes per goal: 139

For one extraordinary season, he was undoubtedly the Premier League’s greatest player as he scored an astonishing 31 goals in 33 games. It really should have earned him the title but instead it earned him a big-money move to Barcelona, where he has scored a goal every 108 minutes and stands behind only two extraordinary players this century.

 

6) Ruud van Nistelrooy (Manchester United)
Total goals: 95
Total minutes: 12166
Minutes per goal: 128

A big leap to this absolute king of penalty area poachers, one of the best players never to have won a Champions League. In four of five seasons at United, the Dutchman broke the 20-goal barrier in the Premier League. Simply astonishing numbers.

 

5) Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Arsenal)
Total goals: 51
Total minutes: 6447
Minutes per goal: 126

To score that volume of goals in an Arsenal side in the midst of a massive slump is nothing short of extraordinary. This week he eased past the 50-goal mark quicker than any other Gunner in history. Now Mikel Arteta must try and convince him to stay.

 

4) Mo Salah (Chelsea and Liverpool)
Total goals: 73
Total minutes: 9141
Minutes per goal: 125

Without that ill-fated spell at Chelsea, he would be even higher up this list – in second, actually. His record for Liverpool is extraordinary, though he is cursed to spend the rest of his career on an inevitable downward curve after the ludicrousness of his first 32-goal Premier League season at Liverpool.

 

3) Harry Kane (Norwich City and Tottenham)
Total goals: 137
Total minutes: 16685
Minutes per goal: 121

And still he remains the best Premier League player to have won absolutely f*** all.

 

2) Thierry Henry (Arsenal)
Total goals: 176
Total minutes: 21305
Minutes per goal: 121

Simply one of the most incredible players to have graced this league. That rarest of things – a great goalscorer and a scorer of great goals, Henry was poetry in motion. There was a time when people actually debated Ruud v Thierry as if they even operated in the same stratosphere.

 

1) Sergio Aguero (Manchester City)
Total goals: 180
Total minutes: 19302
Minutes per goal: 107

So far ahead of the opposition it is ludicrous, the Argentine is now in his ninth Premier League season and only injury will prevent a sixth consecutive 20-goal season. However will City replace him?

 

Just missing out: Alan Shearer and Daniel Sturridge (147), Javier Hernandez (148) and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer (152). The lesson? Leave before you really slow down…

 

 

Topical Top Ten Diego Costa

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