We’ve all seen the stats for whos scored the most goals, but who has scored the most important goals? These stats are for the match-winning goals in Premier League matches. We’ll start with the definition of a match-winning goal and then cover the goals season by season.
Season Finder
What is a match-winning goal?
A match-winning goal is defined as the goal that won the match for the team.
Examples
If a team wins 2-1 then the second goal is the match winner. If the score was 3-1 or 4-1 the second goal is the match winner.
If a team wins to nil then the first goal is defined as the match winner.
If the score was 5-3 then the fouth goal would be the match-winner.
Premier League Match Winning Goals - By Season
We’ve crunched the numbers for every season of the Premier League as well as an all-time list.
2022/2023
Checked 24th April 2023.
- Harry Kane – 10 winning goals
- Marcus Rashford – 10 winning goals
- Erling Haaland – 10 winning goals
- Ivan Toney – 6 winning goals
- Kai Havertz – 5 winning goals
- Gabriel Martinelli – 5 winning goals
- Miguel Almiron – 4 winning goals
- Bukayo Saka – 4 winning goals
As you can see from the above Kane, Rashford, and Haaland are all critical to the team’s success. We can compare this to the number of games they have won and it shows how important they are.
Percentage of match-winning goals scored for their team*
- Kane 62.5%
- Rashford 55.6%
- Haaland 45.5%
- Toney 50%
- Havertz 50%
*This is raw data and only calculates the team’s total wins and does not calculate if they play.
2021/2022 Season
Match-winning goals in the 2021/2022 Premier League season.
- Ronaldo – 7 winning goals
- Salah – 7 winning goals
- Zaha – 6 winning goals
- Vardy – 6 winning goals
- Son – 6 winning goals
- Jota – 6 winning goals
Despite winning the League Manchester City’s winning goals were well spread around the team with Sterling 5, KDB, Foden and Sliva all getting 4. It is no surprise that Ronaldo and Salah topped the charts with 7 each.
2020/2021 Season
The 2020/2021 season saw Manchester City win the league and again they spread the goals around. Here are the top match-winning goal scorers in the 2020/2021 Premier League season.
- Bamford – 7 winning goals
- Vardy – 7 winning goals
- Fernandes – 7 winning goals
- Callum Wilson – 6 winning goals
- Richarlison – 6 winning goals
- Son – 6 winning goals
Callum Wilson topped the charts for the most influential player in his team scoring 50% of the winning goals for Newcastle (6 goals, 12 wins). Despite getting relegated McGoldrick was second with 42.9% of his team’s winning goals (3 goals, 12 wins).
2019/2020 Season
The 19/20 season saw Liverpool win the league. Three Liverpool players were second in the match-winning goal charts with 7 goals, alongside Aubameyang.
Here are the top match-winning goal scorers from the 2019/2020 season.
- Jimenez – 8 winning goals
- Jesus – 8 winning goals
- Aubameyang – 7 winning goals
- Salah – 7 winning goals
- Firmino – 7 winning goals
- Mane – 7 winning goals
- Martial – 6 winning goals
- Rashford – 6 winning goals
In the percentage of their teams winning goals Teemu Pukki scored the most with a 60% rate (5 wins, 3 winning goals). Wolves Jiminez was next with 53.3% and Arsenals Aubameyang was third with 50% of Arsenals match-winning goals.
2018/2019 Season
In 2019/2018 Liverpool and Manchester City battled it out for the league with 97 and 98 points each, respectively. Salah was the top match-winning goal scorer with 9 goals and share the top spot with Lacazette.
18/19 match-winning goalscorers
- Salah – 9 winning goals
- Lacazette – 9 winning goals
- Vardy – 7 winning goals
- Aguero – 7 winning goals
- Kane, Mane, Sterling – 6 winning goals
In the team percentages, Fulahms Mitrovic was the leader with 5 winning goals in their 7 wins. Vardy was next with 46.7% of Leicesters winning goals.
All Time Match Winning Goal Stats
Here are the stats from 1992/1993 through to the current season.
- Alan Shearer – 68 winning goals (260 total)
- Wayne Rooney – 66 winning goals (208 total)
- Frank Lampard – 61 winning goals (177 total)
- Harry Kane – 60 winning goals (206 total)
- Thierry Henry – 59 winning goals (175 total)
- Sergio Aguero – 48 winning goals (184 total)
- Andy Cole – 46 winning goals (187 total)
- Dwight Yorke – 45 winning goals (123 total)
- Ryan Giggs – 42 winning goals (108 total)
- Robin Van Persie – 42 winning goals (144 total)
At his current rate of scoring, we would expect Harry Kane to get to the top of this list by the end of the 2023/2024 season. Of the all-time top 20, other than Kane, only Mohamed Salah is still active. He is currently 17th with 38 match-winning goals. He could make it to 6th by the end of the 2023/2024 season depending on how it goes.
Selected other players
- Heskey – 39 winning goals
- Ronaldo – 39 winning goals
- Fowler – 38 winning goals
- Gerrard – 37 winning goals
- Scholes – 37 winning goals
- Van Nistelrooy – 36 winning goals