Premier League goalscoring records are falling – but what does that mean?

L ast Sunday, amid the gleeful chaos of the 7-0 win over Manchester United, Mohamed Salah became Liverpool’s leading scorer in the Premier League. There is always a slight caution about such statistics – football didn’t begin in 1992, you know – but three decades on the Premier League serves as a useful shorthand for the modern era. But what is perhaps more striking is that Salah is not Liverpool’s all‑time leading scorer. That record still belongs to Ian Rush and that makes Liverpool unique among the big six clubs.

Arsenal’s leading all-time scorer is Thierry Henry. Chelsea’s is Frank Lampard. Manchester City’s is Sergio Agüero. Manchester United’s is Wayne Rooney. Tottenham’s is Harry Kane. Those are all players who are either still playing or retired in the past decade. Which, you may think, makes sense. There are more games than ever before. Careers are longer than they have ever been. Football is in an attacking phase: there are more goals per game than at any point for 60 years.

Even though pure goalscorers have in effect been refined out of the game, even though most elite forwards have to press and create as well as score, the conditions are there for individuals to rack up huge tallies. But if this is purely an issue of general environment, why do none of the other 14 Premier League clubs have an all-time top scorer who played in the past decade?

That goalscoring records are falling at top clubs is partly to do with the attacking nature of the modern game and advances in sports science, but it is also an indicator of the profound imbalances in today’s football.

To an extent that is the economic hierarchy taking effect in a world in which transfers happen far more readily. A player scores goals for a smaller