Minutes-per-goal
Goals change games, as the cliché goes, and it’s hard to argue with those big-name players who scored often enough to earn a spot in the top 20 all-time Premier League goal-getters.
With the help of our friends at STATS, we’ve decided to get a bit more technical by working out an equivalent ranking based on minutes per goal. Using a cut-off of 15 full matches, we can reveal the 20 most prolific forwards in the English top flight since 1992.
19= Michael Owen
153.1 minutes per goal (150 goals)
Surprisingly, Owen never scored 20 goals in a league campaign, netting 19 twice, 18 twice and 16 twice. The former England striker bagged 118 of his 150 Premier League strikes in a Liverpool shirt, before leaving the Reds for Real Madrid aged 24.
Owen returned to English football after just a season in Spain, though, spending eight seasons with Newcastle, Manchester United and Stoke. With a goal every 153.1 minutes, the 5ft 8in frontman scrapes into the top 20.
19= Ole Gunnar Solskjaer
153.1 minutes per goal (91 goals)
Supersubs always have excellent minutes-per-goal ratios, particularly when they’re able to notch four times in 20-minute cameos against Nottingham Forest. A third of Solskjaer’s top-flight appearances came from the bench.
His staying power was commendable: in 11 campaigns the Norwegian never started the most games of Manchester United’s strikers, from Eric Cantona to Wayne Rooney, but the goals still flowed freely.
18. Ivan Klasnic
150.9 minutes per goal (20 goals)
A shock entry at No.18, Klasnic needed just 150.9 minutes to score a Premier League goal during his three years at Bolton. The Germany-born Croatia international struck eight times in his debut campaign of 2009-10, before contributing four goals in 2010-11 – despite failing to start a single match.
Klasnic signed off his Trotters career in 2011-12 with eight goals in 29 outings, the majority of which came off the bench.
17. Zlatan Ibrahimovic
149.4 minutes per goal (17 goals)
Ibrahimovic had his doubters when he pitched up at Old Trafford in summer 2016, with many questioning whether he’d be able to deliver the goods in English football.
The Swedish striker was soon distributing humble pie to those who’d questioned him, scoring 17 goals at an average of one every 143.4 minutes. Critics argued he slowed down United attacks, but Ibrahimovic’s clinical edge inside the penalty area made it worthwhile. He’s yet to score in 2017-18, though, leading to a slight dip in his minutes-per-goal ratio.
16. Alan Shearer
147 minutes per goal (260 goals)
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to see the Premier League’s top goalscorer in this list, but Shearer’s exploits become even more impressive when you consider that Newcastle finished in the bottom half in five of his 10 seasons at St James’ Park.
Although 58 penalties pad out his 260-goal tally, Shearer’s hit rate is nonetheless impressive. That’s especially the case at Blackburn, for whom he netted a remarkable 112 strikes in 138 league appearances.
15. Daniel Sturridge
146.2 minutes per goal (74 goals)
Sturridge has a better strike rate than his critics might expect, although even his biggest doubters have rarely questioned his effectiveness in front of goal. A more damning statistic is that he hasn’t reached 200 Premier League games despite making his debut more than 11 years ago.
Still, he’ll always have the season of 2013-14, when the Englishman and Luis Suarez regularly ran riot for a Liverpool team that came agonisingly close to winning the title under Brendan Rodgers.
14. Diego Costa
145.2 minutes per goal (52 goals)
Antonio Conte has openly criticised the Chelsea board for a perceived lack of financial backing in recent months, but it was the Italian who bombed out Costa last summer.
A clash of personalities was the most likely explanation for the Spain international’s exit, because his scoring record is among the best the division has ever seen. Fifty-two goals in 89 games helped Chelsea to two Premier League titles, and Costa contributed plenty outside the 18-yard box too.
13. Javier Hernandez
142.5 minutes per goal (44 goals)
After 49 league starts and 54 substitute appearances, it’s easy to guess why Hernandez left Manchester United for Bayer Leverkusen. Why he joined a crumbling West Ham is less obvious.
Nonetheless, the Mexican has added seven goals to his Premier League tally despite starting only two-thirds of the time in east London. He was equally efficient at Old Trafford, with an overall Premier League average of 142.5 minutes per goal.
12. Edin Dzeko
141.7 minutes per goal (50 goals)
Dzeko’s Manchester City career was more frustrating than the numbers suggest. Despite offering a consistent goal threat (2011-12: 14 goals at 107 minutes per goal; 2012-13: 14 goals at 130; 2013-14: 16 goals at 125), he was just as consistently benched.
Even when Dzeko equalised as a substitute in the famous title-clinching victory over QPR, Sergio Aguero was the man who grabbed the winner. That was a fitting representation of the Bosnian’s time at the Etihad.
11. Hernan Crespo
141 minutes per goal (20 goals)
Crespo was actually contracted to Chelsea for five years, although he spent only two of them in England. Between loans at Inter and Milan, the striker scored 10 league goals for Claudio Ranieri (four of them coming in defeats) and 10 for Jose Mourinho (which all translated into victories). Somehow that contrast doesn’t come as a complete surprise to us.
A rate of 141 minutes per goal suggests the traditional view of Crespo as a Chelsea flop requires a rethink.
10. Robin van Persie
139.7 minutes per goal (144 goals)
At his (relatively late) peak, Van Persie was a penalty-box striker so deadly that Alex Ferguson broke his own rules and spent £24m on a 29-year-old. It paid off too, the Dutchman firing in 26 goals to carry Manchester United to the title in 2012-13.
Van Persie already had a healthy hit rate at Arsenal, with his final campaign in north London yielding 30 goals. That was his highest ever tally in the Premier League, although his minutes-per-goal ratio was still impressive even in his younger, injury-hit days.
9. Luis Suarez
138.8 minutes per goal (69 goals)
The Uruguayan’s minutes-per-goal ratio for Liverpool was improved by his preposterous final year of 2013-14, in which he matched the 38-game Premier League season record of 31 goals and could feasily have passed 40 had he been on penalty duties (Steven Gerrard took 11 across the campaign).
With another dozen assists, Suarez contributed to a goal every 69 minutes that season. He wasn’t quite as productive in his previous campaigns, but the ex-Ajax man did plunder 23 goals in 2012-13.
8. Kelechi Iheanacho
133.2 minutes per goal (13 goals)
Two words: poacher’s instinct. Iheanacho set the tone with his first Manchester City goal, beating three Crystal Palace players to a loose ball for a stoppage-time winner. It’s not just tap-ins, mind: another injury-time winner, against Swansea, looped in off his back.
They all count. And, seven months after his £25m move, he’s finally scored in the league for Leicester. Game time has proven hard to come by in the East Midlands, but Iheanacho has bags of potential and certainly knows where the goal is.
7. Ruud van Nistelrooy
128.3 minutes per goal (95 goals)
Van Nistelrooy is perhaps unfortunate to be considered a good striker rather than a great one, because a 12-year peak return of 75 goals in 91 games for PSV, 150 in 219 for Manchester United and 64 in 96 for Real Madrid is more than reasonable.
Goals aren’t a striker’s only currency, and the Dutchman certainly didn’t offer a great deal in other areas. Nonetheless, Van Nistelrooy did provide a very competitive exchange rate, and he’s arguably the foremost poacher in Premier League history.
6. Adam le Fondre
124.4 minutes per goal (12 goals)
Le Fondre has spent most of his career outside the top flight, representing eight different clubs in the Championship, League One and League Two since his professional debut in 2004.
The striker never really did enough to establish himself in the top flight, although his astonishing minutes-per-goal ratio means he can consider himself a little hard done by. Le Fondre’s only Premier League campaign, 2012-13, featured more goals (12) than starts (11), with his final eight strikes all coming as a substitute.
5. Thierry Henry
121.8 minutes per goal (175 goals)
To average a goal for every two hours of Premier League football played is impressive; to maintain such a rate across eight years is imperious. To do that while setting a yet-to-be-broken record for most assists in a season (20 in 2002/03) is taking the mickey, frankly.
Henry is a strong contender for the unofficial accolade of ‘best ever Premier League player’, with only four players having scored more goals in the division than the two-time Gunners title winner.
4. Gabriel Jesus
117.6 minutes per goal (15 goals)
Jesus arrived straight from the Brazilian league and joined a Manchester City team that already possessed one of the greatest strikers English football has ever seen. Yet the youngster settled immediately, contributing 11 goals and assists in 10 appearances in 2016-17, and even pushed Sergio Aguero out of the team on occasion before injury.
Still only 20 years old, Jesus could conceivably still be scoring goals in the Premier League more than a decade from now. Few strikers have adapted as quickly to the division.
3. Harry Kane
113.3 minutes per goal (102 goals)
After scoring 21 goals in his debut campaign, Kane shrugged off suggestions he was a one-season wonder by smashing home 25 and then 29 in 2015-16 and 2016-17 respectively. He’s currently on 24 for 2017-18, although an ankle injury could prove costly in the battle for the Golden Boot.
Kane isn’t just a goalscorer – he creates chances as well as converting them – but his main quality is his coolness inside the penalty area. Even at this early stage of his career, the Englishman probably has Alan Shearer’s Premier League goal record in his sights.
2. Mohamed Salah
109 minutes per goal (26 goals)
In 2014, an unusually busy January saw Chelsea sell Kevin De Bruyne and Juan Mata while buying Nemanja Matic and Mo Salah. When the latter left Stamford Bridge, it followed two goals in nine hours of football – which is the only reason he isn’t a distant first in this ranking.
That’s because Salah is averaging a Premier League goal every 96 minutes for Liverpool. He’s certainly not a traditional winger, but it’s even more remarkable that the Egyptian has hit those numbers despite not playing as an out-and-out centre-forward.
1. Sergio Aguero
107.3 minutes per goal (143 goals)
It’s hard to know which is the more incredible statistical achievement for Aguero: to have averaged a goal every minutes during Manchester City’s 2013-14 title triumph, or to have generally scored so many in the league (143) at a consistent rate – he’s averaged under 100 minutes per goal in four of the past five seasons.
Aguero turns 30 in June. Although he’ll no doubt keep scoring for a while yet, we should cherish this phenomenon here and now.
