The Premier League top scorers - Who leads the all-time list, and who's on top among current players?

The Barclays Premier League is arguably the most competitive league in the world

The Barclays Premier League is arguably the most competitive league in the world, and boasts some of the best forwards currently playing the game. The names of Diego Costa, Sergio Aguero and Wayne Rooney immediately pop to the mind when you talk of the leading marksmen plying their trade in England.

The league, since its inception in 1992, has also witnessed legendary strikers like Alan Shearer, Thierry Henry, Robbie Fowler and many more. Long serving midfielders like Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard and Paul Scholes have also scored a huge number of goals by virtue of their longevity in the Premier League.

So where do these players rank in terms of total goals scored in Premier League history? Let’s have a look at the top scorers in the Premier League overall as well among the players who are still active in the game. (All stats have been collected from the official website of the Premier League)

All-time Premier League top goal scorers

Alan Shearer is the Premier League’s all-time leading goalscorer with 260 goals

Alan Shearer leads the goalscoring charts in Premier League history with 260 goals, a whopping 73 strikes ahead of his nearest competitor Andy Cole. The only player with a realistic chance of catching up with the Newcastle United legend is Wayne Rooney, who along with Frank Lampard and Robin van Persie are the three players in the Top 10 list who are still playing the game.

The Manchester United skipper is only two behind Cole with 185 goals to his name, and he's just 29 years old now. Lampard and Van Persie are unlikely to return to the Premier League and that leaves the door open for Rooney to try and close the gap between himself and Shearer.

Thierry Henry, ranked No. 5 with 175 goals for Arsenal, is the only player in the Top 10 to have scored all his league goals for a single club. The Frenchman also has the highest goals/games average, which is a remarkable 0.678.

The only midfielder in the list, Frank Lampard has understandably the lowest average at 0.29.

The 6th and 7th spots are occupied by Liverpool legends Robbie Fowler and Michael Owen respectively, while journeymen strikers Les Ferdinand and Teddy Sheringham occupy the next two places. 

The top 10 is rounded off by Van Persie who played for title rivals Arsenal and Manchester United. 

Here’s the full table:

No	Player	Clubs	Season	Appearances	Goals	Gls/Games
1	Alan Shearer	Blackburn Rovers Newcastle United	1992 – 1996 1996 – 2006	132 301	112 148
				441	260	0.589
2	Andy Cole	Newcastle United Manchester United Blackburn Rovers Fulham Manchester City Portsmouth Sunderland	1993 – 1995 1995 – 2001 2001 – 2004 2004 – 2005 2005 – 2006 2006 – 2007 2007 – 2008	58 195 83 29 20 18 7	43 93 27 12 9 3 0
				414	187	0.451
3	Wayne Rooney	Everton Manchester United	2001 – 2005 2005 – Present	67 336	15 170
				403	185	0.459
4	Frank Lampard	West Ham Chelsea Manchester City	1993 – 2001  2001 – 2014 2014 – 2015	148 429 32	24 147 6
				609	177	0.29
5	Thierry Henry	Arsenal	1999 – 2007 2011 – 2012	251 4	174 1
				258	175	0.678
6	Robbie Fowler	Liverpool Leeds United   Manchester City Liverpool Blackburn Rovers	1992 – 2001/02 2001/02 – 2002/03 2002/03 – 2005/06 2005/06 – 2007 2008 – 2009	235 30   76 25 3	120 14   21 8 0
				379	163	0.43
7	Michael Owen	Liverpool  Newcastle United Manchester United Stoke City	1996 – 2005  2006 – 2009 2009 – 2012 2012 – 2013	216 70 31 8	118 26 5 1
				326	150	0.46
8	Les Ferdinand	Queens Park Rangers Newcastle United Tottenham Hotspur   West Ham United Leicester City Bolton Wanderers	1992 – 1995   1995 – 1997 1997 – 2002/03   2002/03 2003 – 2004 2004 – 2005	109   68 118   14 29 12	60   41 33   2 12 1
				351	149	0.424
9	Teddy Sheringham	Nottingham Forest Tottenham Hotspur Manchester United Tottenham Hotspur Portsmouth  West Ham United	1992/93 1992/93 – 1997  1997 – 2000/01 2000/01 – 2003 2003 – 2004 2005 – 2007	3 164 104 70 32 32	1 75 31 22 9 8
				418	146	0.349
10	Robin van Persie	Arsenal Manchester United	2003 – 2013 2013 – 2015	180 86	96 48
				246	144	0.585

Top 10 Premier League goal scorers who are still active in the game

Wayne Rooney tops the table among active players & is just 2 goal behind Andy Cole in the all-time list

Rooney tops this list which also has Emmanuel Adebayor, Peter Crouch and Sergio Aguero – all of them still playing in the top tier of English football. The United striker might be top in terms of goals scored but Manchester City's Argentine international, who sneaks in at No. 10 in the list, has the highest goals per games ratio (0.64) among the contenders.

Here’s the Top 10 list:

No	Player	Clubs	Season	Appearances	Goals
1	Wayne Rooney	Everton Manchester United	2001 – 2005 2005 – Present	67 336	15 170
				403	185
2	Frank Lampard	West Ham Chelsea Manchester City	1993 – 2001  2001 – 2014 2014 – 2015	148 429 32	24 147 6
				609	177
3	Robin van Persie	Arsenal Manchester United	2003 – 2013 2013 – 2015	180 86	96 48
				246	144
4	Darren Bent	Ipswich Town Charlton Athletic Tottenham Hotspur Sunderland Aston Villa Fulham Aston Villa	2001 – 2002 2005 – 2007 2007 – 2009/10 2009/10 – 2010/11 2010/11 – 2013 2013 – 2014 2014 – 2015	5 68 60 58 54 24 7	1 31 18 32 21 3 0
				276	106
5	Didier Drogba	Chelsea	2004 – 2012 2014 – 2015	215 28	100 4
				254	104
6	Emmanuel Adebayor	Arsenal Manchester City Tottenham Hotspur	2005 – 2009 2009 – 2011 2011/12 – Present	103 34 92	46 15 35
				239	96
7	Peter Crouch	Aston Villa Southampton Liverpool Portsmouth Tottenham Hotspur Stoke City	2001 – 2004 2004 – 2005 2005 – 2008 2008 – 2009 2009 – 2011/12 2011/12 – Present	37 27 80 38 73 133	6 12 22 11 12 33
				388	96
8	Yakubu	Portsmouth Middlesbrough Everton Blackburn Rovers	2003 – 2005 2005 – 2007/08 2007/08 – 2011 2011 – 2012	67 68 82 30	28 25 25 17
				252	95
9	Dimitar Berbatov	Tottenham Hotspur Manchester United Fulham	2006 – 2008/09 2008/09 – 2012 2012 – 2013/14	70 108 51	27 48 19
				229	94
10	Sergio Aguero	Manchester City	2011 – Present	121	78

Top 10 goal scorers who are still playing in the Premier League

Sergio Aguero has the best goals/games ratio among the Top 10 goal scorers who are still playing in the EPL

No	Player	Appearances	Goals
1	Wayne Rooney	403	185
2	Emmanuel Adebayor	239	96
3	Peter Crouch	388	96
4	Sergio Aguero	121	78
5	Gabriel Agbonlahor	302	73
6	Kevin Nolan	395	69
7	Yaya Toure	164	52
8	Steven Fletcher	175	50
9	Theo Walcott	209	50
10	Gareth Barry	529	50

Note: Stats updated as on 14th August 2015