Who is your club’s record scorer & who might be next?

A club’s all-time goalscoring record is one of the most significant milestones on its honours list, often receiving the most attention when it is broken.

On Sunday, the 29-year-old scored his 267th Tottenham goal in the win over Manchester City, taking him past the tally of fellow England forward Jimmy Greaves.

But what of the rest of the English top-flight clubs and their all-time scoring record? Which players currently hold them, how close are they to being broken and who might become new record holders?

First, some clarity on the numbers.

As reported in the Times recently, discrepancies are a pitfall when discussing the subject of club record goalscorers, partly as a result of the Football Association not keeping complete official records.

We are, therefore, reliant on other sources to provide us with the stats, chiefly the clubs themselves and unofficial authorities such as the English National Football Archive.

This brings up an issue with Greaves’ goal tally, which Spurs set at 266 but did not include his two scored in Charity (now called Community) Shield matches.

In comparison, the 253 goals netted by Wayne Rooney and recognised as the Manchester United goalscoring record do include those in Charity/Community Shield games (he scored one), as do the records of Frank Lampard with a Chelsea high of 211 (one), Ian Rush’s Liverpool best of 346 (three) and others.

For the purposes of this piece and consistency with our reporting on Kane, we are sticking to Spurs’ interpretation of the record.

Club	Player	Goals	Games	Held since
Nottingham Forest	Grenville Morris	217	459	January 1903
Brighton	Tommy Cook	123	209	December 1924
West Ham	Vic Watson	326	505	August 1925
Bournemouth	Ronnie Eyre	229	628	December 1925
Leicester	Arthur Chandler	273	419	January 1926
Everton	Dixie Dean	383	433	April 1928
Crystal Palace	Peter Simpson	165	195	January 1931
Aston Villa	Billy Walker	244	531	November 1932
Brentford	Jim Towers	163	282	October 1959
Leeds	Peter Lorimer	238	707	March 1973
Southampton	Mick Channon	228	602	September 1976
Fulham	Gordon Davies	178	450	February 1989
Wolves	Steve Bull	306	561	March 1992
Liverpool	Ian Rush	346	660	October 1992
Arsenal	Thierry Henry	228	376	October 2005
Newcastle	Alan Shearer	206	405	March 2006
Chelsea	Frank Lampard	211	648	May 2013
Manchester United	Wayne Rooney	253	559	January 2017
Manchester City	Sergio Aguero	260	390	November 2017
Tottenham	Harry Kane	267	416	January 2023

As you can see from the dates on the above records, a player becoming their club’s all-time goalscorer is a rare accomplishment and even more so in the transient, uneven world of modern football.

Only six of the men who currently hold a Premier League club’s top tally achieved it this century, with eight records having stood since before the start of World War Two.

It is no mystery as to why this is the case. In general, players simply do not stay at clubs as long as they once did, especially those of high goalscoring calibre playing outside the division’s ‘big six’ clubs.

Interestingly but not surprisingly, five of the six records broken this century have come at one of Premier League’s established elite sides – those with the clout and financial muscle to hold on to the best strikers for a prolonged period.

There will, of course, always be exceptions. Alan Shearer – the one man to break a non-‘big six’ club goalscoring record this century – moved to and stayed at Newcastle because of his personal affinity to his hometown club.

And who’s to say such a relationship between an elite player and club won’t arise again? Or that the career trajectory of an individual and team do not sync up perfectly, with the former scoring the goals that help fire the latter into the top-flight just in time for him to break their goals record?

In all likelihood, though, many of the current Premier League club goalscoring records are unlikely to be beaten.

As you can see above, few clubs have a current top goalscorer anywhere close to challenging their all-time goals record.

Fulham are the closest to having a new record scorer, but Aleksandar Mitrovic still has 71 goals to score to match the tally of Gordon Davies. Mitrovic is 28 years old and so the clock is ticking.

Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah and Jamie Vardy at Leicester have healthy totals to their name, but with the sizable respective records of Ian Rush and Arthur Chandler to chase down and, again, age not on their side, a change of ownership for the club record looks highly unlikely.

And spare a thought for Dominic Calvert-Lewin (or indeed any Everton player present or future), who has the toughest challenge in the top flight to beat the all-time Toffees record of Dixie Dean.

Even if the 25-year-old plays for another decade (including this season), he would need to average around 32 goals a campaign to get close to Dean’s 383. He’s only managed double figures twice so far in his career.

So which players have a better chance of breaking their current club’s all-time goalscoring record?

The criteria are fairly obvious – they must have demonstrable talent and time on their side.

A certain amount of educated guesswork is required – with some players needing a much bigger leap of faith than others – but below are the players best placed to have a go at breaking their current club’s record and what they would need to do to achieve it.

We’ve given each of the players until the season in which they turn 35 years old to reach the number required.

Team	Player	Club goals	Current club record	Avg goals per season required
Arsenal	Eddie Nketiah	32	228	15.08
Aston Villa	Ollie Watkins	33	227	21.55
Bournemouth	Dominic Solanke	53	229	16
Brentford	Ivan Toney	61	163	11.33
Brighton	Alexis Mac Allister	15	123	9
Chelsea	Kai Havertz	29	211	14
Crystal Palace	Wilfried Zaha	89	165	12.67
Everton	Dominic Calvert-Lewin	59	383	32.4
Fulham	Aleksandar Mitrovic	107	178	8.88
Leeds	Patrick Bamford	48	238	26.57
Leicester	Patson Daka	14	273	21.58
Liverpool	Mohamed Salah	173	346	28.83
Manchester City	Erling Haaland	31	260	16.36
Manchester United	Marcus Rashford	112	253	12.82
Newcastle	Miguel Almiron	23	206	26.14
Nottingham Forest	Brennan Johnson	26	217	12.73
Southampton	Che Adams	29	229	20
Tottenham	Harry Kane	267	267	NA
West Ham	Jarrod Bowen	34	326	24.33
Wolves	Daniel Podence	15	306	32.33

As you can see, some of the suggestions are in with a shot (fitness permitting), some have some serious work to do and others are just wishful thinking.

Haaland is worthy of further investigation, though.

His 31 goals for Manchester City have come in just 26 games. If he carries on at this rate, he should score the 230 goals he needs to surpass Sergio Aguero’s record of 260 in roughly 193 games.

Even if Haaland only plays in 40 games a campaign, he would become City’s record goalscorer about 10 games into the 2027-28 season. He’ll be 27 years old.

Rashford is another to mention off the back of a recent hot streak in front of goal that has seen him net 10 goals in as many games since the World Cup in Qatar.

He still has 141 goals to score to reach Rooney’s Manchester United goals record but at 25 he still has time on his side and presumably little inclination to leave his hometown club anytime soon.

As for Kane, since properly establishing himself in the Tottenham side in 2014-15, he has averaged 30 goals a season in his completed campaigns to date.

If (and granted it is a big if) he matches this tally in every season until he reaches the one in which he is 35, the next player who wants to break the Spurs goalscoring record would need to net a whopping 458 goals!

There’s a very good chance that Kane may also take another record from Greaves if he manages such a haul – by surpassing the 1966 World Cup winner’s overall English top-flight goals tally of 357.