Table of Contents
Erling Haaland broke
the Premier
League record for the most goals scored in a single season in
2022-23. After a strong start to 2025-26, canthe Manchester City striker go even
better?
The Premier League had to wait 28 years for a player to surpass
the all-time seasonal scoring record set by both Alan Shearer and
Andrew Cole, but Erling
Haaland finally did in 2022-23. His 35th Premier League goal on
3 May 2023 broke Shearer and Cole’s record of 34 and there was even
time for him to add one more to his tally before the campaign was
out.
As he chases down Premier League history, we give you a complete
run-down of the best seasonal goalscoring records the Premier
League has ever witnessed.
36 goals: Erling Haaland,
2022-23
34 goals: Alan Shearer, 1994-95*
34 goals: Andrew Cole, 1993-94*
32 goals: Mohamed Salah, 2017-18
31 goals: Luis Suarez, 2013-14
31 goals: Cristiano Ronaldo, 2007-08
31 goals: Alan Shearer, 1995-96
31 goals: Alan Shearer,
1993-94
30 goals: Harry Kane,
2022-23
30 goals: Harry Kane,
2017-18
30 goals: Robin van Persie,
2011-12
30 goals: Thierry Henry,
2003-04
30 goals: Kevin Phillips,
1999-00
*42-game seasons
Erling
Haaland 2022-23 (36 goals)
Erling Haaland smashed the single-season Premier League scoring
record in his first ever season in England – no mean feat.
He scored his 36th goal of the Premier League season (and his
52nd overall at club level in 2022-23) with his strike in Man
City’s 3-0 win over Everton on 14 May 2023, becoming the first
English top-flight player to surpass 35 goals in a single campaign
since Ron Davies in 1966-67 (37).
Of course, he didn’t break the all-time top flight seasonal
record set by Everton’s Dixie Dean (60) in 1927-28, but Haaland
became just the third Premier League player to score at least 30
goals in their first season in the competition after Andrew Cole in
1993-94 (34) and Kevin Phillips in 1999-00 (30), while he was also
the fastest player in competition history to reach 30 goals (27
apps).
Four hat-tricks were been scored by Haaland to contribute
towards his 36-goal tally – the only player to score more trebles
in a single Premier League season was Alan Shearer (five) in
1995-96.
Alan
Shearer 1994-95 (34 goals)
Alan Shearer scored 31 goals in 1993-94 but it wasn’t enough to
seal the Premier League’s Golden Boot. That went to Andrew Cole
(see below) but both men represented up-and-coming clubs looking to
damage Manchester United’s gleaming new hegemony at the top of
English football. Shearer would not only score more goals than Cole
in 1994-95 but he would also fire his Blackburn Rovers team to
their first league championship since 1914.
Shearer scored 34 times in 42 appearances, and while the goal
total is impressive, the fact he started all 42 league games (and
was subbed off only twice) is perhaps even more so, given the
injury problems he endured throughout his career. It would be the
only campaign in Shearer’s Premier League life in which he started
all possible games in a single season and his reward was the only
major honour of his career.
Shearer was famously reluctant to use his left foot, something
that can be seen by the fact only one of the 34 goals this season –
an early strike in a 3-1 win at Man City on Boxing Day – came with
that appendage. Nine of his 34 came in the opening 15 minutes of
games, as Shearer and Blackburn started on the front foot in their
attempt to stop Manchester United winning three titles in a
row.
This was something they ultimately achieved, Shearer scoring on
the final day of the season at a restless Anfield, more bothered
about United not winning the league than the day’s result. As it
happened, Liverpool won 2-1 but Alex Ferguson’s team failed to beat
West Ham so Rovers finished top.
Shearer’s imperial goal period had what it deserved: a major
honour.
Andrew
Cole 1993-94 (34 goals)
One of Man Utd’s schemes to derail Blackburn’s
ultimately-successful title bid in 1994-95 was to purchase the
34-goal reigning Golden Boot holder Andy Cole from Newcastle United
in January 1995, and while no-one argued with the move from a
purchasing point of view, there was widespread astonishment that
Newcastle would let their star man go.
Cole had fired the Magpies back into the top-flight in 1992-93
and his totals of 34 goals and 13 assists in 1993-94 were outright
leading figures in both categories, a feat that wouldn’t be
repeated by a single player until Harry Kane did so in 2020-21.
Even more impressively, none of Cole’s 34 goals that season were
penalties, and by the time he ended his Premier League career in
2008, only one of his 187 goals was sourced from the penalty
spot.
Cole would end his career with five Premier League titles, a
UEFA Champions League, two FA Cups and a League Cup but they all
arrived after 1993-94, the season in which he looked like, and
indeed was, the most exciting striker in the country.
Mohamed
Salah 2017-18 (32 goals)
Cole and Shearer’s 34-goal seasons came in the last two Premier
League campaigns to feature 22 teams, and hence 42 games. From
1995-96, teams (and fit players) would play 38 games, and for a
long time it seemed like 31 goals was the glass ceiling for player
goals in this structure. That was until Liverpool chose to bring
Mohamed Salah, formerly of Chelsea, back to the Premier League from
Roma in summer 2017 to complete the formation of the famous front
three of Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino and Salah.
The Egyptian scored on his club debut at Watford, albeit in a
disappointing 3-3 draw, and he would go on to score four more
against them in the reverse fixture at Anfield. Salah scored
against Arsenal, Chelsea and from distance in Liverpool’s 4-3
thriller against Manchester City in January. He scored three goals
against Tottenham but most importantly he scored against Brighton
on the final day, because that took him to that landmark figure of
32 goals in a 38-game season.
Anguish would follow in the form of that shoulder injury he
picked up challenging with Sergio Ramos in the Champions League
final, but Salah’s 2017-18 league campaign is one of the greatest
ever seen in the English top-flight. His haul of seven (seven) LFC
player of the month awards that season only goes to prove the
point.
Luis
Suárez 2013-14 (31 goals)
Salah overtook three 31-goal players with his 2017-18 season and
one of them was an Anfield predecessor, Luis Suárez. The Uruguyan
had to wait until late September before opening his account, not
because of a slow start or injury but because he was completing a
bumper 10-game ban, handed out for biting Branislav Ivanovic in his
club’s home game with Chelsea in April 2013. It meant that Suárez
could only feature in 33 Premier League games in 2013-14 but he
certainly made up for lost time.
He scored hat-tricks against West Brom in October, Cardiff in
March and got his customary glut against Norwich City with a
magnificent four in a pre-Christmas rout of the Canaries. In fact,
he scored 10 goals in December, which remains a Premier League
record for a single month, but if there’s one criticism, on-field
at least, it’s that he scored only two goals in April in May as
Liverpool’s title bid gloriously neared and then vanished in
dramatic circumstances.
His last Premier League goal of the season, and indeed the last
of his career in England, came in the 3-3 capitulation against
Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park in Liverpool’s penultimate game.
Suárez left the pitch in tears and left Liverpool soon after.
Incredibly he would be caught out biting an opponent again at the
2014 World Cup to bookend a madcap campaign, but what a season it
had been.
Cristiano Ronaldo 2007-08 (31 goals)
This season was the one real glimpse Cristiano Ronaldo gave of
the industrial quantities of goals he would plunder once he moved
to Real Madrid in 2009. 2007-08 saw Man Utd win the Premier League
title for the second season in a row and add the Champions League
to boot. Ronaldo’s combination with Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez
was awe-inspiring at times and the latter two players were
invariably happy to put in untold grunt work for Ronaldo to profit
from, and boy, did he profit.
The season started badly with a red card at Fratton Park in his
second appearance, and the first goal didn’t come until United
played Birmingham City in late September, via Rio Ferdinand’s
penultimate Premier League assist.
Like an orthodontist’s workload, Ronaldo’s season of plenty was
built on braces, rather than hat-tricks of which there was only one
(his second and third Premier League trebles would have to wait
until the 2021-22 season in the distant future). He scored a pair
of goals against Wigan at Old Trafford in October, Blackburn in
November, Fulham and Everton in December, Portsmouth in January,
Newcastle in February, Bolton in March and West Ham in May.
His 31st goal of the season came in the final league game of the
season at Wigan, a 2-0 win that gave the Red Devils the title ahead
of Chelsea, the same team they would soon overcome on penalties in
the Champions League final in Moscow.
Alan
Shearer 1995-96 (31 goals)
In August 1995 Alan Shearer was coming off a 34-goal season (see
above) and played for the champions of England. But manager Kenny
Dalglish had moved to a mysterious director of football role,
leaving Ray Harford as manager and Rovers with little chance, it
turned out, of retaining their league title. So the fact that
Shearer scored a then-record 31 goals in a 38-game season as
Blackburn finished only seventh and fought each other in the
Champions League was impressive. And it was a goalscoring season
built around hat-tricks, with Shearer scoring a Premier
League record five in one season.
He ended the season with a brace against Wimbledon on a
Wednesday in Lancashire and that was the last time the Ewood Park
faithful saw Shearer score in blue and white. He top-scored at Euro
’96 and then moved to Newcastle United for a world record fee of
£15m. He’d score more Premier League goals for Newcastle United
than Blackburn, but never at the same sheer
rate.
Alan
Shearer 1993-94 (31 goals)
Yet more Shearer. This 31-goal haul came in a 42-game season so
is perhaps less impressive than the 31 in 1995-96 but Shearer did
score 12 away goals in 1993-94, a Premier League high for him, and
he also answered any doubts that remained after the knee injury
that had impacted 1992-93. This campaign is also notable for a
total of nine braces, a seasonal Premier League record for a single
player who caused double trouble on a relentless basis.
Harry
Kane 2022-23 (30 goals)
Thanks to two goals on the final day of the 2022-23 season
against Leeds United, Harry Kane reached the 30-goal mark for the
second time in a Premier League season. In doing so, he became the
first player to score 30+ goals in two separate 38-game Premier
League seasons, but it’ll be a sore subject for Kane, as he failed
to win the Golden Boot in either of them – Haaland beating him this
season after Salah outscored him in 2017-18.
Kane’s brace in the final game of the season meant that he
scored in 26 different Premier League matches across 2022-23,
equalling the all-time Premier League seasonal record set by Andy
Cole in 1993-94, but setting a new record in a 38-game season in
the competition.
After moving to Bayern Munich in August 2023, these may
be the final goals he ever scores for the club – even maybe the
Premier League. As it stands, Kane’s 30 goals in 2022-23 took him
to within 47 of Alan Shearer’s all-time competition record of 260.
With Kane now bothering Bundesliga defences in 2023-24 and beyond,
Shearer’s record looks safe… for now.
Harry
Kane 2017-18 (30 goals)
In a lot of campaigns scoring 30 goals would have brought a
Golden Boot with it, but this was Mohamed Salah’s first season at
Liverpool and we know exactly how that went.
Kane, as was the style in those days, did not begin his Premier
League goalscoring until August had ended, with braces against
Everton and West Ham in September getting him up and running.
Kane has not scored a Premier League hat-trick since 2017, when
he scored two in four days in December, against Burnley and
Southampton respectively. A brace on the final day against
Leicester took Kane to 30, and it should also be noted that “home”
for him this season was Wembley Stadium, as Spurs waited for their
new home to be built.
He followed up this season by winning the Golden Boot at the
World Cup in Russia, so overall it was a more than satisfactory
campaign.
Robin
van Persie 2011-12 (30 goals)
There was never any doubt about Robin van Persie’s ability with
the ball, just his ability to stay fit. Up until the 2011-12
season, van Persie had never managed to play more than 28 league
games in any of his seven previous campaigns with Arsenal. In
2011-12 he played all 38 for the Gunners and in 2012-13 he played
all 38 for Manchester United, scoring a total of 56 goals in those
76 games. Thirty of them came in his final season with Arsene
Wenger, with 10% of those coming in a memorable 5-3 win at Stamford
Bridge, making van Persie one of only three visiting players to
score a Premier League hat-trick away at Chelsea, along with Kanu
and Sergio Aguero.
For a long time the Premier League’s top-scoring player with his
weaker foot, van Persie scored 12 with his “chocolate” right leg in
2011-12. His final goals in an Arsenal shirt came as a pair against
Norwich in May. A year later he was a Premier League champion with
Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United, something that has not
happened again for any of them.
Thierry
Henry 2003-04 (30 goals)
This was the only time Thierry Henry reached 30+ Premier League
goals, but it did come in a run of five successive seasons of 24+
goals so it’s the apotheosis of a period of footballing grace from
arguably the competition’s greatest ever player. Add that to the
fact that 2003-04 was the season that Arsenal won the title without
losing a single game and Henry’s legacy is only enhanced
further.
The coup de grace was a pair of hat-tricks in the space of a
week against Liverpool and Leeds United. The first rescued
Arsenal’s unbeaten record and the second made it seem
inevitable.
Yes, 12 of the final 13 goals of Henry’s 2003-04 came at
Highbury but it was a lovely pitch so what exactly do you
expect?
Kevin
Phillips 1999-00 (30 goals)
The 11th player in this top 10 is Kevin Phillips, whose
1999-2000 season remains the best challenger to Andy Cole’s 1993-94
for goalscoring impact by a promoted player. Cole did it for
Newcastle, Phillips did it for Sunderland and in the process scored
16 of his 30 goals away from home. In the 30-year history of the
Premier League no other player has ever scored more often past
opposition goalkeepers away from home in a single season.
His only hat-trick came on the road, away at Derby and his
overall performance earned him not only the Golden Boot – no
Englishman would win it again until Harry Kane in 2016 – but also a
place in Kevin Keegan’s doomed England squad for Euro 2000.
Phillips ended up playing eight more seasons of Premier League
football for Sunderland, Southampton, Aston Villa, Birmingham City
and Crystal Palace, but would never even post a seasonal tally half
of his 30 goals in 1999-00, with his next best coming the season
after in 2000-01 at the Black Cats (14 goals).
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