Who Has Scored the Most Goals in a Premier League Season?

Erling Haaland broke the Premier League record for the most goals scored in a single season in 2022-23. How long will it take for someone to surpass him?

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.

Here, 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 campaign in England – it was no mean feat.

He scored his 36th goal of the 2022-23 Premier League season (and his 52nd overall at club level that term) with his strike in Manchester 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). He was also the fastest player in competition history to reach 30 goals (27 apps).

Four hat-tricks contributed to Haaland’s 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 also fired Blackburn Rovers to their first league championship since 1914.

Shearer scored 34 times in 42 appearances, and while the goals 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 career 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 in 1994-94 – an early strike in a 3-1 win at Man City on Boxing Day – came off his left. 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’s golden 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 Andrew Cole from Newcastle United in January 1995. While no-one argued with the move from a purchasing point of view, there was widespread astonishment that Newcastle let their star man go.

Previously, 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; no one topped both metrics again in a single season until Harry Kane 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 strikes had been from the spot.

Cole ended 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 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 therefore 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 players.

That was until Liverpool chose to bring Mohamed Salah, formerly of Chelsea, back to the Premier League from Roma in 2017 to complete the formation of the famous front three of Sadio Mané, Roberto Firmino and Salah.

The Egyptian scored on his club debut at Watford, albeit in a 3-3 draw, and he went 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 netted three goals against Tottenham, but most importantly he scored against Brighton on the final day, because that took him to the landmark figure of 32 goals in a 38-game season.

Anguish followed in the form of the shoulder injury he picked up tussling 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.

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 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 that December, which remains a Premier League record for a single month.

If there was one criticism, on field at least, it’s that he scored only twice in April and May as Liverpool’s title bid gloriously neared and then vanished in dramatic circumstances. But what a season it had been for him.

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 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.

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 at Wigan, a 2-0 win that gave the Red Devils the title ahead of Chelsea, the same team they then overcame 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 Shearer scored a then-record 31 goals in a 38-game season as Blackburn finished only seventh 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 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 then-world-record fee of £15 million. He scored more Premier League goals for Newcastle United than Blackburn, but never at the same 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.

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