Which Player Has Scored the Most Goals in a Premier League Season?

Football is, by its very nature, a team game that is made up of individuals. The team’s overall performance is the thing that matters, which is why it is the team that wins the trophy at the end of each campaign, but the performances of individuals can help towards that aim. One of the most important commodities in football is goals, given the fact that they help you win games. Defenders and goalkeepers are important because they stop the opposition from scoring, but players that can put the ball in the back of the net will cost the most money in the transfer market.

Sometimes teams win titles thanks to the fact that people contribute from all over the pitch. Goals from midfield can help to take the strain off the attackers, whilst defenders will often pop up with a goal from a set-piece of thanks to a rare foray forwards. There have even been some pretty important goals scored by goalkeepers every now and again. Ultimately, though, strikers are there to put the ball in the back of the net and their ability to do so is why they are worth so much and earn such huge wages. The question is, then, which players has done it more than anyone else in a single Premier League season?

The Top Scorers in a Season

We could just tell you exactly who it is that has scored the most goals in a single season of Premier League football, but a name and a number doesn’t tell us an awful lot. In order to get a better sense of just how impressive their accomplishment is, here is a look at the top goal tallys and the players that managed it.

In essence, if a player managed to score more than 20 goals in a season then they are worthy of discussion, but those that scored 25 or more are in the top ten goal totals of the Premier League era. It is worth noting that some of the players on this list, such as Andy Cole and Alan Shearer for their 34 goal hauls, managed it when the top-flight was played over 42 games instead of the 38 games that are played nowadays. Had we looked at the top ten totals rather than the top ten players, we’d have been looking at a list of players that had all scored more than 30 goals.

Looking At The Players

Having explained which players are on the list for the top ten scores managed across a single season of Premier League action, it is worth having a closer look at each of the players in detail. What was it that made them so special? How was it that they managed to put the ball into the back of the net so regularly and were they one-season wonders or did they manage to repeat the trick at another time?

Erling Haaland

Alfie Haaland was playing for Leeds United in the Premier League when Erling Haaland was born, seeing his career brought to a close when Roy Keane deliberately injured him whilst Manchester United captain. That was a despicable act and also proved to be something of a mistake, given the fact that Erling went on to become the best goalscorer that the Premier League has ever seen, all whilst wearing the shirt of one of Manchester United’s fiercest rivals, Manchester City. He scored 62 goals in 66 league games for Borussia Dortmund before moving to England.

That move saw him work with Pep Guardiola and a Manchester City team that had been prolific on its own, allegedly bending the financial rules to the point that the club breached 115 Premier League rules in order to assemble a squad that was all but unbeatable. In fact, City won a continental treble in the 2022-2023 campaign, pipping Arsenal to the Premier League title whilst also winning the FA Cup and the Champions League. Rival fans might point to the unfairness of it all, but no one can argue with Haaland’s incredible goal scoring prowess and ability.

Alan Shearer

If you want to talk about prolific Premier League strikers then you have to discuss Alan Shearer, if for no other reason than he has scored the most goals in the history of the Premier League. He netted 260 times across 441 games, putting himself in the record books and all but securing his place there when Harry Kane left Tottenham Hotspur to join Bayern Munich. You can see from the list of seasons in which he scored enough goals to join our list just how impressive he was as a player, finding four separate reasons to make our list of top goalscorers.

Andy Cole

Andy Cole, later styling himself as Andrew Cole, only makes this list once, but that doesn’t mean that he was a one-season wonder. He moved to Manchester United in 1994, winning several titles with the Red Devils but being unlucky in terms of injuries and competition from other players. Even so, he was the joint-top scorer for the 1997-1998 season, working alongside Teddy Sheringham to form a strong partnership. Even so, it was his 34 goals for Newcastle United in the 1993-1994 season that saw him write his name into the record books and make it onto our list.

Mohamed Salah

Mo Salah had experienced the Premier League before during his time with Chelsea, but his lack of success in London meant he always felt he had unfinished business. When he signed for Liverpool, there wasn’t a huge amount of fanfare in spite of the fact that he had impressed at Roma. When he scored 32 goals during a single season, however, he had the Kop singing, “If he’s good enough for you, he’s good enough for me, if he scores another few, then I’ll be Muslim too.” It is an impressive tally all on its own, but becomes even more so when you realise only one goal was a penalty.

Cristiano Ronaldo

Whilst Cristiano Ronaldo might not someone who impressed the Spanish tax authorities, he definitely knew how to put the ball into the back of the net. During Manchester United’s 2007-2008 campaign he managed to notched up a goals-to-game ratio of 0.91, which is one of the highest ever. Remarkably, his goal scoring ability actually went up when he left Old Trafford for Real Madrid, netting 48 times in 35 games during the 2014-2015 season. He returned to United for a period towards the end of his career scoring 18 times in 2021/22 but leaving under a cloud for Saudi Arabia the following season.

Luis Suarez

It is fair to say that Luis Suarez was a somewhat divisive individual. Banned for eight matches after being charged with racism and later getting another long ban for biting someone, he was a player that allowed his emotions to get the better of him on a regular basis. As a goal scorer, though, there were few better. In fact, his most prolific campaign for Liverpool came in a season when he missed the first four games because of serving one of those suspensions, netting 31 times in 33 games. He matched Mo Salah in the record for Premier League goals without penalties, too.

Kevin Phillips

It is entirely fair to say that Kevin Phillips was something of a footballing journeyman, playing for nine different clubs during his career. Sunderland weren’t the most successful club during his time there, but they did manage to finish seventh in 1999-2000, with the team scoring 57 goals. That means that Phillips was responsible for more than half of them on his own, which is impressive enough without even mentioning the fact that it was his debut season in the top-flight. He scored plenty more goals in his career but never again managed to hit those same heights.

Thierry Henry

Thierry Henry later went on to become a pundit, but when he played in the Premier League as a forward for Arsenal he was all but untouchable. The Frenchman makes out list three times, having scored 175 times in 258 games for the Gunners. His career later took him to Barcelona and New York Red Bulls before a brief return to the Emirates on loan, which was a fitting way for his career to end considering it was with the London club where he was truly at his best. His 30 goals helped the Gunners to secure the Premier League title in 2003/04 without losing a game during the season.

Robin van Persie

Is Robin van Persie an Arsenal legend? He played for the club between 2004 and 2012, scoring 96 Premier League goals and helping them win the FA Cup and making it to the Champions League final, but he didn’t win the Premier League with them. Instead, he did that with Manchester United, scoring 26 times in the process. It was Arsenal where he made his name, though, to say nothing of the fact that it was whilst playing for the Gunners that he netted 30 times in 38 games and doing enough to make it onto our list as a prolific striker.

Harry Kane

There is an argument that Harry Kane is the best striker of the modern day, scoring more than 20 goals in five season for Tottenham Hotspur. The club’s best player by some distance at the time, Kane didn’t win silverware with Spurs but finished as a runner-up in the League Cup twice as well as losing to Liverpool in the Champions League final. The striker was a big part of the reason why Tottenham were even part of such conversations, being named Player of the Month seven times and earning the Golden Boot three times before leaving to join Bayern Munich.

Didier Drogba

Didier Drogba was a handful for any Premier League defender, scoring 10 times in 26 appearances during his first season at Stamford Bridge. That helped to fire Chelsea to a top-flight title, which he did more than once during his time at the club. His most successful season was in the 2009-2010 campaign, during which time he played 32 games and scored 29 times. That saw the club win a Premier League and FA Cup double, whilst the club itself set a new record for the number of goals scored in a season at 103. With nearly a third of them, Drogba was unstoppable.

Robbie Fowler

Liverpool is a football club that has had its fair share of brilliant players and incredible goalscorers, so it says something about Robbie Fowler’s ability that he was known as ‘God’ to the Anfield faithful. He scored 25 times in the 42-game season that was 1994-1995, but impressed even more the following year. He netted 28 times, in spite of the fact that there were only 38 games in a league campaign. Fowler is considered to be one of the best ever by Liverpool fans, whose career might have been so different if he hadn’t struggled with injury throughout.

Wayne Rooney

Wayne Rooney, often affectionately referred to as ‘Wazza’, burst onto the scene at Everton with his effervescent play and nine goals in 34 games as a teenager. It earned him a move to Manchester United, where he scored 26 times in the 2009-2010 campaign, helping the Red Devils to win the title and equal the number of times that Liverpool had won the top-flight. Two years later and he went one goal better, but the club as a whole could only finish second on the Premier League. It was the miles in the legs that ultimate did for Rooney, but for a time he was one of the country’s very best.

Sergio Agüero

Sergio Agüero arrived at Manchester City during the sportswashing era, going on to prove himself as one of the best strikers in the history of the Premier League. He might well have appeared on our list more times than he actually does, were it not for some terrible luck with injuries. He scored 26 goals in the 2014-2015 campaign but scored 24 in both 2011-2012 and 2015-2016. His work in front of goal helped City to win five of their top-flight titles, as well as an FA Cup and six League Cups. It will always be tainted in the eyes of many because of how they were won, but Agüero’s ability was never in doubt.

Matt Le Tissier

In the years after his retirement, Matt Le Tissier’s controversial views have undoubtedly tainted the reputation of one of the Premier League’s most natural and talented finishers. He scored 25 goals in the top-flight in the 1993-1994 season, having scored 15 the season before and getting 20 the season after. He remained playing for the Saints until the conclusion of the 2001-2002 campaign, but it was what he had managed in his 25-goal season that saw him go down in history.

Chris Sutton

As Matt Le Tissier was banging them in for Southampton in the 1993-1994 season, Chris Sutton was doing the same thing for Norwich, even scoring the same number of goals. Whilst it didn’t mean a huge amount to the Canaries’ season, it did earn him a move to Blackburn Rovers. He worked well with Alan Shearer there, with Kenny Dalglish getting the pair playing so well that it resulted in the club winning the Premier League title and becoming the first club to stop Manchester United from dominating the newly formed competition, with Sutton scoring 15 times.

Les Ferdinand

In the 1995-1996 campaign, Kevin Keegan was taking on the Premier League behemoth that was Manchester United in a fight for the title. It was nip and tuck, with the Magpies ultimately missing out but not without trying. Part of the reason why Newcastle United were able to get so close was that Les Ferdinand could barely miss, scoring 25 times in 37 games. He never managed to repeat the trick again, but for one season he was sensational and allowed the Geordies to dream that maybe, just maybe, they could win a top-flight title for the first time since 1927.

Ruud van Nistelrooy

Rutgerus Johannes Martinus van Nistelrooij, becoming Ruud van Nistelrooy when he played in England, had been a brilliant goalscorer in his native Holland, catching the eye of Alex Ferguson as a result. He moved to Manchester United in 2001, scoring 23 goals in his first season before going two better the season after. His 25 goals helped the Red Devils to win the Premier League title, whilst the Dutchman won the FA Cup a year later and the League Cup a year after that. He left United for Real Madrid but will be remembered by most football fans as one of the Premier League’s best strikers.

Romelu Lukaku

When you consider the fact that Romelu Lukaku played for Chelsea in two spells and Manchester United for two seasons, you’d be forgiven for thinking that one of those campaigns was when he scored 25 goals in a single season. In reality, however, it came during the 2016-2017 campaign whilst he was playing for Everton, managed by Ronald Koeman. The Blues finished in seventh in the Premier League, which was an entirely respectable achievement for the Merseyside club, whilst Lukaku was the Premier League Player of the Month in March of 2017.