Alan Shearer scored his last Premier League goal in 2006, and for twenty years nobody has been able to catch him. Harry Kane came within 47. Mohamed Salah came within 67. Erling Haaland is the only man still chasing the record with any real hope.
I’ve always thought this is one of the best top ten lists in football. Most fans can reel off the top three without thinking, but ask for numbers six to ten and the arguments start. It’s exactly the kind of question we load into Football Tenable, our free daily football quiz, and it’s where most players start losing lives.
So here’s the full list of the Premier League’s ten greatest goalscorers, with the numbers, the stories behind them and my own take on each. All figures are correct as of 14 October 2026.
Who Are The Top 10 Goalscorers in Premier League History?
| Rank | Player | Goals | Years | Clubs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alan Shearer | 260 | 1992–2006 | Blackburn, Newcastle |
| 2 | Harry Kane | 213 | 2012–2023 | Tottenham |
| 3 | Wayne Rooney | 208 | 2002–2018 | Everton, Manchester United |
| 4 | Mohamed Salah | 193 | 2013–2026 | Chelsea, Liverpool |
| 5 | Andy Cole | 187 | 1993–2008 | Newcastle, Manchester United, Blackburn, Fulham, Manchester City, Portsmouth, Sunderland |
| 6 | Sergio Aguero | 184 | 2011–2021 | Manchester City |
| 7 | Frank Lampard | 177 | 1995–2015 | West Ham, Chelsea, Manchester City |
| 8 | Thierry Henry | 175 | 1999–2012 | Arsenal |
| 9 | Robbie Fowler | 163 | 1993–2007 | Liverpool, Leeds United, Manchester City |
| 10 | Jermain Defoe | 162 | 2001–2019 | West Ham, Tottenham, Portsmouth, Sunderland, Bournemouth |
10. Jermain Defoe: 162 Goals
Defoe never won the league title and still finished as a top ten scorer, which tells you everything about his finishing. He scored for West Ham, Tottenham, Portsmouth, Sunderland and Bournemouth, and his best afternoon came for Spurs in November 2009, when he hit five in a 9-1 win over Wigan.
He was a poacher in the classic sense: quick, sharp and always on the shoulder of the last defender. I’d argue he’s the most underrated name on this list. He spent most of his career at mid-table clubs and in relegation scraps, and he kept scoring anyway. He’s also the man Haaland has to pass to get into the top ten.
9. Robbie Fowler: 163 Goals
Fowler was a Liverpool lad from Toxteth, and the Kop called him “God”. He scored most of his 163 goals for his hometown club, with a left foot that seemed to find the corner without any effort at all.
One record sums him up. In 1994 he scored a hat-trick against Arsenal in four minutes and 33 seconds, which stood as the fastest in Premier League history for more than twenty years until Sadio Mane beat it in 2015.
For me, Fowler in the mid-nineties was the most natural finisher the league has ever seen. Injuries took the edge off him in his mid-twenties, and I’ve always wondered how high he’d have climbed if his body had held up.
8. Thierry Henry: 175 Goals
Henry arrived at Arsenal as a misfiring winger. Arsene Wenger turned him into one of the greatest forwards the league has ever seen. He scored his 175 goals in just 258 appearances, the best goals-per-game ratio of anyone in this top ten, just ahead of Kane and Aguero.
He won four Golden Boots, a record he shares with Salah, and he was the centrepiece of the Invincibles side that went the whole of 2003-04 unbeaten. If I could watch one player on this list at his absolute peak, it would be Henry. Nobody has ever made scoring in this league look so effortless.
7. Frank Lampard: 177 Goals
Lampard is the most prolific midfielder in Premier League history, and I don’t think that gets the credit it deserves. Goals from midfield were supposed to be a bonus, and he turned them into a career.
He signed for Chelsea from West Ham in 2001 and spent 13 seasons at Stamford Bridge, becoming the club’s record goalscorer and winning three league titles. His secret was the late run into the box. Defenders tracked the ball, forgot about him, and he was always there to finish.
Scoring 177 goals as a striker is outstanding. Doing it while also running the midfield is, in my view, harder than anything else on this list.
6. Sergio Aguero: 184 Goals
Aguero joined Manchester City from Atletico Madrid for around £35m in 2011 and scored twice on his debut in a 30-minute cameo off the bench. Less than a year later he scored the goal that won City their first league title in 44 years.
That stoppage-time winner against QPR is still the greatest finish to any Premier League season, and I’ve watched it back more times than I’d like to admit. He left in 2021 as City’s all-time record scorer with 260 goals in all competitions and five league titles to his name.
5. Andy Cole: 187 Goals
Cole is the name people forget when they list the greats, and I think that’s a mistake. His Newcastle spell produced 43 Premier League goals in 58 games, including 34 in the 42-game 1993-94 season, a record Shearer matched the following year and that stood until Haaland scored 36 in 2022-23.
He then moved to Manchester United for a British record fee and scored 93 goals in 195 games, forming a famous partnership with Dwight Yorke in the treble-winning side of 1999. He played for seven Premier League clubs in total and scored for almost all of them.
4. Mohamed Salah: 193 Goals
Salah’s first Liverpool season was absurd. He scored 32 Premier League goals in 2017-18, and it only got better from there. He won four Golden Boots, two league titles, and finished with 191 Premier League goals and 93 assists for Liverpool, the most goal involvements any player has managed for a single club.
His 200th goal for Liverpool in all competitions came at Selhurst Park in December 2023, and it summed him up: cutting in from the right, finishing like it was routine. His final season was a strange one, with seven league goals and a public fallout with Arne Slot in December, but Anfield gave him the send-off he deserved in May.
He leaves as the highest-scoring overseas player in Premier League history. Now that he’s playing abroad, his total stays at 193, and I suspect it’ll be a long time before another winger gets anywhere near it.
3. Wayne Rooney: 208 Goals
Rooney announced himself in October 2002 as a 16-year-old for Everton, with a last-minute screamer that ended Arsenal’s 30-match unbeaten run. Which is mad to even say out loud as I remember that goal like it was yesterday, He went on to become Manchester United’s all-time leading scorer with 253 goals in all competitions.
What made him special was the range. He scored thunderbolts from 30 yards and tap-ins from three, and he’d run all day for the team. His Premier League career ended back at Everton in 2018 before spells at DC United and Derby.
My honest view is that his total undersells him. For several of his best seasons at United he was asked to play wide or deeper to make room for others, and I think a selfish Rooney finishes second on this list.
2. Harry Kane: 213 Goals
Kane is the player the record was supposed to belong to. He scored 213 Premier League goals, all of them for Tottenham, won three Golden Boots, and hit 30 in both 2017-18 and 2022-23.
Then he left for Bayern Munich in 2023, 47 goals short of Shearer, and took the chase out of English football. He’s a different striker from Shearer, dropping deep, creating for others and still finishing. In another timeline he already holds the record, and I’ll always think English football lost something when he went.
1. Alan Shearer: 260 Goals
Shearer joined Blackburn from Southampton in 1992 for a British record £3.6m, and he paid it back in goals. He scored 34 in 1994-95 as Rovers won the league for the first time since 1914, then moved to his hometown club Newcastle for a world record £15m in 1996.
He scored 112 for Blackburn and 148 for Newcastle, and won three Golden Boots in a row. He retired as the record holder in 2006, and twenty years on, nobody has got closer than 47.
What strikes me most is that he did it despite serious knee injuries in his prime. Take those away and I think the record would be well beyond anyone’s reach.
Who Could Break Into the Top 10?
Haaland is the obvious one. He has 118 Premier League goals after scoring in City’s 3-0 win at Anfield on Sunday, which leaves him 44 short of Defoe in tenth place. He scored 36 in 2022-23, the highest single-season total in the league’s history, and he has won three Golden Boots, matching Shearer and Kane.
He followed his 27-goal Golden Boot in 2025-26 with six goals in City’s first six league games this season. At that rate he could pass Defoe before the end of next season, then keep climbing past Fowler, Henry, Lampard and Aguero. He’s the only active player with a realistic chance of reaching the top five.
The Top 20 Premier League Scorers of All Time
The top ten get all the attention, but places 11 to 20 are full of players I’d argue deserve more credit. Here’s how the rest of the top 20 looks, correct as of 14 October 2026.
| Rank | Player | Goals |
|---|---|---|
| 11 | Michael Owen | 150 |
| 12 | Les Ferdinand | 149 |
| 13 | Teddy Sheringham | 146 |
| 14 | Jamie Vardy | 145 |
| 15 | Robin van Persie | 144 |
| =16 | Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink | 127 |
| =16 | Son Heung-min | 127 |
| 18 | Robbie Keane | 126 |
| 19 | Nicolas Anelka | 125 |
| =20 | Dwight Yorke | 123 |
| =20 | Raheem Sterling | 123 |
Owen is the one that gets me. He reached 100 Premier League goals at just 23, and I’m convinced that without the injuries he’d be sitting comfortably inside the top ten. Vardy’s 145 is the most remarkable total here, given he didn’t play a Premier League game until he was 27.
Haaland is currently on 118, five short of joining Yorke and Sterling, so expect this table to change before Christmas.
Who Scored the Premier League’s 10,000th Goal?
That man is Les Ferdinand, and I’ve always loved that it was him. The goal came on 15 December 2001, when Tottenham beat Fulham 4-0 at White Hart Lane, and Ferdinand opened the scoring in the 20th minute with a simple tap-in from Darren Anderton’s low cross.
It wasn’t a worldie, and it didn’t need to be. Ferdinand was 35 by then, a proper old-school centre-forward who’d been banging in Premier League goals since the very first season with QPR, so it felt right that the milestone landed on his boot. He’d scored a hat-trick against Bolton in the League Cup three days earlier, which made it quite a week.
The goal earned him £10,000 to give to a charity of his choice, and he finished his career with 149 Premier League goals of his own. That’s a total I think gets forgotten, because he spent his best years at QPR and Newcastle rather than a club that won everything.
Two names from this top ten also have milestone goals to their name. Shearer scored the league’s 12,000th against Tottenham in December 2003, and Defoe got the 14,000th for Spurs against Birmingham on Boxing Day 2004. Somehow it’s fitting that two of the league’s great finishers keep turning up whenever the goal counter ticks over.
Will Haaland break Shearer’s record?
My honest view is that Shearer’s record is safe for now, but not forever. Haaland is 142 goals behind, and he has averaged around 28 a season since arriving in England. That’s roughly five more seasons of staying fit and staying in the Premier League.
He’s 26 and under contract at City until 2034, so the timeline works. If he keeps going at this pace, he’d break the record around his 31st birthday.
Kane is closer on paper, 47 behind, but he’s 33 and has agreed in principle to extend his stay at Bayern. He’d need to come back to England in his mid-thirties and score at close to his best for two full seasons. I wouldn’t bet on it.
If I had to pick, I’d back Haaland. Shearer has had twenty years to enjoy the record. The next five are when it finally comes under real threat.
Think you can name all ten without checking? Try our Premier League Quiz Questions and Answers.
