Premier League players who scored the most goals in a calendar year are those who scored the most goals from January to December. This is split into two parts, each with a separate season. It's difficult to maintain the same level of performance throughout two seasons, but these strikers did just that. While the player who scores the most goals in a season gets the prestigious Golden Boot. But the top scorers in a calendar year are not talked about enough. However, on many occasions, it has happened that the top scorers in a calendar year end up becoming the Golden Boot winners as well.
So without further ado, let’s look at the top 9 calendar year goalscorers in the Premier League.
No. | Name | Club | Year | Goals |
1 | Harry Kane | Tottenham Hotspur | 2017 | 39 |
2 | Alan Shearer | Blackburn/Newcastle United | 1995 | 36 |
3 | Robin van Persie | Arsenal | 2011 | 35 |
4 | Thierry Henry | Arsenal | 2004 | 34 |
5 | Alan Shearer | Blackburn Rovers | 1994 | 30 |
6 | Ruud van Nistelrooy | Manchester United | 2003 | 30 |
7 | Les Ferdinand | QPR/Newcastle United | 1995 | 30 |
8 | Luis Suarez | Liverpool | 2013 | 29 |
9 | Alan Shearer | Newcastle United | 2002 | 27 |
In 2017, Harry Kane shattered Alan Shearer's 22-year record for most Premier League goals in a calendar year, with an amazing hat-trick against Southampton propelling the England international to 39 league goals for the year. Over the previous two decades, though, the Spurs great isn't the only one who has come close to breaking Shearer's record. He finished the year with 56 competitive goals for club and country, the most of any player in Europe's top five divisions.
Shearer's 1995 season began in January with hat-tricks against West Ham and Ipswich Town. He even scored a brace against Arsenal, earning him not just the Premier League winner's medal but also the Golden Boot. Alan Shearer won the league title with Blackburn in 1995, then returned to his boyhood club, Newcastle, to establish a 22-year record of 36 goals in a calendar year. Although the former England striker is no longer at the top of the list, he will always be one of the finest, if not the best. goalscorers in Premier League history.
Whether or not Arsenal supporters like it, Robin van Persie is the finest goalscorer the club has ever had in a calendar year. If there was ever a time in a player's career when he felt he had truly arrived, it was in 2011. A hat-trick against Chelsea in a tight 5-3 triumph at Stamford Bridge was perhaps the cherry on top of an exceptional year in which he scored 35 goals. Despite a transfer to Manchester United in 2012 leaving an unpleasant taste in most Gooners' mouths, the Dutchman scored 35 goals for Arsenal in 2011, only one goal short of Shearer's long-standing record.
Henry had his finest goal-scoring year in the Premier League in 2004, the same year he established himself in the record books with Arsenal's Invincibles. He was lightning quick, powerful, and had a tremendous football brain. In the second half of the season, Henry put on a show to win the Premier League Golden Boot. Alan Shearer, who scored 30 goals for Blackburn in 1994, is next on the list. Shearer scored 30 goals for Blackburn Rovers in 1994, barely 12 months before his Premier League record-breaking season. Shearer helped the Rovers win the Premier League at the end of the 1994/95 season.
Ruud van Nistelrooy's career at Manchester United reached its pinnacle in 2003. The Dutch striker scored 25 goals in the 2002/03 season, beating Thierry Henry to the Golden Boot with a goal on the penultimate day of the campaign. Following a £25 million transfer from PSV Eindhoven, Van The Man played five years in Manchester, scoring 30 Premier League goals in 2003. Les Ferdinand is on the same level as him. Les Ferdinand scored 30 Premier League goals in 1995, the same year Shearer broke the long-standing Blackburn goal-scoring record. During the 1995 season, Ferdinand played for Queens Park Rangers and Newcastle United.
Les Ferdinand is followed by Luis Suarez and Shearer again. Suarez scored 29 Premier League goals in 2013, cementing his spot among the top nine players on this list. Alan Shearer set the Premier League scoring record with 27 goals in 2002, seven years after setting it. Shearer was a natural striker, and throughout his time with Newcastle and Blackburn in the Premier League, he scored over 250 goals.
