Premier League goal record in one season: Haaland’s 36

Haaland moved clear of Cole and Shearer with his 35th league goal of 2022/23, a second-half strike against West Ham in Manchester City’s 33rd league match of the campaign. He eventually finished on 36, with Harry Kane six goals behind in the scoring race. That gap is worth dwelling on: Kane’s 30-goal season for Tottenham would usually be the sort of return that dominates the conversation. Instead, Haaland had pushed the standard beyond anything previously seen in the Premier League. He also received the competition’s Player of the Season award.

The distinction between team fixtures and player appearances matters here. City had a 38-match league schedule, but Haaland played in 35 of those games, averaging 1.03 goals per appearance according to StatMuse. That does not mean he scored in every match; an average describes the overall return, not how evenly the goals arrived. His tally included seven penalties, which count towards the record just like any other league goal. Cup and European goals do not count. Neither do assists: this is a goalscoring record, not a measure of combined goal contributions.

The previous records: Cole, Shearer and Salah

Before Haaland, the overall summit belonged jointly to Andy Cole and Alan Shearer. Cole scored 34 for Newcastle United in 1993/94, and Shearer matched him for Blackburn Rovers in 1994/95, winning both the Golden Boot and the league title that season. Both campaigns were played under the old 42-match format. There is a useful club-name trap here for quizzes: although Cole is strongly associated with Manchester United, his record-equalling total came at Newcastle. Likewise, Shearer’s 34-goal campaign was for Blackburn, not Newcastle. The badge beside the number is part of the story.

Why did Mohamed Salah’s 32 goals for Liverpool in 2017/18 also get described as a record? Because the Premier League had changed size. Before 1995/96, it contained 22 clubs, each playing 42 league matches; from 1995/96, it became a 20-club competition with 38 fixtures per team. Salah therefore held the record specifically for a 38-match season, while Cole and Shearer retained the outright mark. Both descriptions were valid when properly labelled. Haaland removed that particular complication by exceeding both totals: his 36 is the overall record as well as the record under the shorter schedule.

The route to Salah’s mark featured some formidable scoring seasons. Shearer hit 31 for Blackburn in 1995/96, establishing a benchmark for the reduced schedule that Cristiano Ronaldo matched for Manchester United in 2007/08 and Luis Suárez matched for Liverpool in 2013/14. Salah then lifted it to 32 before Haaland raised it again. The wider 30-goal club includes Kevin Phillips for Sunderland in 1999/00, Thierry Henry for Arsenal in 2003/04 and Robin van Persie for Arsenal in 2011/12. Kane reached 30 for Tottenham in both 2017/18 and 2022/23. It is exceptional company, even without holding the record.

Team goals and other common record mix-ups

For a club rather than an individual, Manchester City’s 106 goals in 2017/18 are the Premier League single-season record at the time of writing. Their final league figures show why that campaign stands out: 32 wins, 100 points and a goal difference of +79 across 38 matches. The goals total and goal difference are not interchangeable. Goals scored counts everything a team puts past its opponents; goal difference subtracts what it concedes. City conceded 27 that season, so their attacking total was 106, not 79. And this was not Haaland’s record season: the two achievements belong to different City campaigns.

Home and away scoring records are separate categories too. Chelsea’s 68 home goals in 2009/10 and Liverpool’s 48 away goals in 2013/14 lead those respective lists in the Premier League’s records. Neither figure represents a full-season total. Similarly, a Golden Boot identifies a season’s leading scorer, rather than automatically signalling a new historical record. Cole’s 1993/94 campaign illustrates the difference neatly: Shearer scored 31 for Blackburn that season, a magnificent return, but Cole’s 34 for Newcastle denied him the award. Outstanding goalscoring and finishing top of the scoring chart are not always the same thing.

Finally, keep the boundaries of the competition clear. The Premier League began in 1992, so its records are not records for the entire history of England’s top division. A single-season tally is also different from a career total: Shearer’s 260 Premier League goals concern the latter. For the straightforward question of who scored the most Premier League goals in one season, the answer is Haaland, with 36 for Manchester City in 2022/23. Remember the player, club, total and season, and you have the essential answer without needing an argument about fixture formats.