As Jamie Vardy closes in on Ruud van Nistelrooy’s Premier League record of scoring in 10 consecutive matches, it is difficult to avoid being drawn into questioning whether it is indeed the former Manchester United man’s record that he is chasing.
The formation of the Premier League in 1992 marked a separation from the Football League that has become more significant – particularly in the record books – than the initial name change might have had us expect.
Vardy is looking to make Premier League history
These days feats are judged in accordance with the generation of the Premier League when, of course, football did not merely begin in 1992. It is a different game that has been impacted, globalised and monetised phenomenally by its new title, but that is not reason enough to disregard previously set records that are now barely considered.
Here are 12 Premier League records along with the truth that lies behind them.
Goals in consecutive games
Leicester’s on fire frontman has scored in 9 consecutive matches, leaving him one behind Ruud van Nistelrooy’s 10-game Premier League streak, but look back to the 1931/32 Division One season and Sheffield United’s Jimmy Dunne goes one – well, two – better.
Scores were higher back then but Dunne’s 12-match run still deserves the requisite credit, especially considering that he scored 18 times in that run. That should still be the heights for which Vardy is aiming.
Consecutive seasons in the top flight
‘Ever-present’ in the Premier League is a term used alongside no fewer than seven teams. Is it really a feat worthy of praise if United, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Tottenham, Aston Villa and Everton have all managed 24 years without relegation?
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It makes much more sense to consider all of footballing history, in which time Arsenal’s stint in the Premier League is merely tagged on the end of further 66 years at the top. Incredibly, they have now completed 90 successive seasons in the top flight.
Games unbeaten
Arsenal’s Invincibles may not have been the only top flight team ever to go a full season unbeaten, but they did set both a Premier League and an all-time record in going 49 games undefeated. That run is arguably the most impressive footballing record in history.
Arsenal's unbeaten run is the best in top flight
Consecutive losses
Sunderland’s 15 straight losses during 2002/03 is the worst run of consecutive defeats in one season in both Premier League and top flight history. Astonishingly, they began their return to the big time in 2005/06 with five more losses, making another record of 20 straight defeats.
Most goals in a season (team)
The 103 goals Chelsea hit in winning the title in 2009/10 is not to be sniffed at. It is a record that was challenged a few years later but will likely stand for the foreseeable future with no single team managing to match those levels of dominance.
However, it doesn’t come close to Aston Villa’s 128 goals back in 1930/31. Though it is worth noting that they hit those heights in a 42-game season, they still outscored Chelsea in goals per game, three to 2.7. Unbelievably, Villa didn’t even win the league that season, let down by a leaky defence that shipped 78 goals!
Most goals in a season (player)
Cole and Shearer have both managed 34 goals in one campaign; both doing so in 42-game seasons, thus making it extremely difficult for players these days to top that tally.
Meanwhile, Dixie Dean hit a whopping 60 First Division goals as Everton won the title in 1927/28. All of Everton’s other players managed only 42 between them.
Dixie Dean scored 60 goals in a season
Highest ever scorer
As Wayne Rooney’s career stutters and splutters into his fourth decade, many are wondering if, having gone level with Andy Cole in second place in terms of Premier League goals scored, he will catch Alan Shearer at the top.
The Newcastle legend is 73 goals clear on 260 – unquestionably a sensational feat that deserves the highest praise, but what about poor Jimmy Greaves? He hit 357 top flight goals for Chelsea, Tottenham and West Ham in just 14 seasons and that leaves Shearer’s record in its wake.
Greaves scored more top flight goals than Shearer
Most appearances
There is barely another player on the planet who can match the longevity of Ryan Giggs’ modern day career. And to do so at the most successful club in the country, too, is quite incredible.
However, Peter Shilton blows Giggs’ 632 top flight appearances out of the water, having played in 849 games over the course of his 31-year career.
Shilton's 849 top flight games is the real record
Biggest win
Manchester United’s 9-0 Premier League victory over Ipswich will take some beating but two 12-0 wins either side of the turn of the 20th century go even better. West Brom saw off Darwen in 1892 and Nottingham Forest beat Leicester Fosse in 1909 in the joint-biggest top flight wins of all time.
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Youngest goal-scorer
Rooney’s record was broken by James Milner, who then saw his effort chalked off at 16 years and 270 days by James Vaughan. And yet nobody mentions Jason Dozzell, who scored for Ipswich only eight years before the Premier League’s inception, aged just 16 years and 57 days.
Sheringham is the oldest ever Premier League scorer
Oldest goal-scorer
The pace of the game certainly makes it more difficult for golden oldies to prolong their careers as long as they used to, but Teddy Sheringham managed a goal for West Ham just before he turned 41. Billy Meredith, meanwhile, scored an FA Cup goal aged 49 years and 208 days back in 1924.
Most goals in a game
Alan Shearer, Andy Cole, Dimitar Berbatov, Jermain Defoe and Sergio Aguero have each scored five goals in a Premier League game, but back in 1935, Ted Drake scored every goal as Arsenal beat Aston Villa 7-1. Even more impressive is the fact that he, unlike the five aforementioned Premier League players, managed his haul away from home.
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