One of the most prominent criticisms levelled against relegated or relegation-threatened teams is that they simply don’t have enough goals in them. Signing a proven Premier League goal scorer, say a player who has hit 15+ goals in consecutive Premier League campaigns, is likely to set you back in excess of £70 million, and even then the player in question is only likely to move on if a top six or at least a potential top six club came calling.
All that means the rest of the Premier League are left with little option but to stick with what they have got or take a chance on a foreign import or lower league hotshot. Last season, of the three relegated club’s, Cardiff’s top scorer bagged five goals, Fulham’s managed the most impressive 11 and Huddersfield’s scored a miserly four goals, which is fewer than Brighton centre-back Shane Duffy.
Clearly scoring goals tends to be an issue for relegated clubs then, but today, we wanted to take a look at occasions in which it wasn’t. A quick shout-out to Harry Sinclair who sent in this idea on Twitter, and don’t hesitate to leave your own video ideas either in the comments or on our Twitter feed.
Here are the 7 top scoring relegated players of the Premier League era:
7. Darren Bent – 13 Goals
Getting us started in seventh place, or joint-sixth in fact since he is tied with another player on the same goals tally, is former England international Darren Bent. It is all too easy to forget just how prolific Darren Bent was at times in the top flight. Only Didier Drogba and Wayne Rooney scored more goals than the Englishman in the 2009-10 season, as he bagged 24 Premier League goals. If you hit that tally for a team that finished 13th now, you could expect an £90 million valuation the following summer. The season in which Bent was relegated and thus makes this seven though, was the 2006-07 campaign with Charlton. He scored 13 goals, but the joint worst defence in the league saw Charlton finish 19th, and Bent departed for Tottenham the following summer.
6. DJ Campbell – 13 Goals
DJ Campbell of Maidenhead United during the FA Cup Qualifying Third Round match between Maidenhead United and Gosport Borough at York Road on October 11, 2014 in Maidenhead, England.
I must admit, even though I do recall Blackpool scoring pretty freely for a relegated club under Ian Holloway in the 2010-11 season, I didn’t realise quite how prolific their top scorer DJ Campbell was. Having failed to score a single goal in 11 outings in his last taste of Premier League football with Birmingham, the former non-league man bagged 13 goals from 31 games for the Tangerines, tying with £35 million Liverpool forward Andy Carroll and Mexico’s all time record scorer Javier Hernandez in the scoring charts. Blackpool conceded a ridiculous 78 goals though, and were relegated on the final day, whilst Campbell stayed in the Premier League with QPR but couldn’t replicate his success at Loftus Road.
5. Jermain Defoe – 15 Goals
Despite probably being best known for his ten years in two stints with Tottenham Hotspur, Jermain Defoe was actually rather more prolific in his much shorter stays at Portsmouth and Sunderland. The Englishman proved to be a masterstroke of a signing by the Black Cats, who brought him back to the Premier League from the MLS in a swap deal with Jozy Altidore. Following his debut half-campaign, he scored 15 Premier League goals in each of his two full seasons at the Stadium of Light. His goals just kept the club up in the 2015-16 season, but couldn’t prevent the club finishing last in 2016-17. Defoe left the following summer for AFC Bournemouth.
4. Fabrizio Ravanelli – 16 Goals
Fabrizio Ravanelli before the Unesco Cup match between Juventus Legends vs Boca Legends at the Juventus Stadium of Turin on september 08, 2015 in Turin, Italy. (Photo by Loris Roselli
Going a little bit further back to the mid-1990’s, Fabrizio Ravanelli spent just a season at Middlesbrough, but he gave supporters in the north-east some pretty memorable performances. Capped 22 times by Italy, Ravanelli joined an ambitious Boro side off the back of four seasons at Juventus, and he scored an incredible 31 goals in 48 games in all competitions. Roughly half – 16 – of those goals came in the Premier League, but Boro were still relegated in 19th place with the worst defence in the league.
3. Yakubu – 17 Goals
Nicknamed ‘the Yak’, Nigerian striker Yakubu was probably a tad underrated during his time in the Premier League. He bagged a total of 95 goals and 26 assists in just over 250 Premier League appearances, scoring fairly prolifically for Portsmouth, Middlesbrough and Everton. His most prolific Premier League campaign actually came in the autumn of his career though, in the 2011-12 season, when he was relegated in a dysfunctional Blackburn Rovers side. Yakubu scored 17 goals in 31 games, outscoring the likes of Luis Suarez, Carlos Tevez and Fernando Torres. Nevertheless, Blackburn didn’t come particularly close to survival, and Yakubu departed the following summer in a move to China.
2. Charlie Austin – 18 Goals
Charlie Austin of West Bromwich Albion during the Carabao Cup First Round match between West Bromwich Albion and Millwall at The Hawthorns on August 13, 2019 in West Bromwich, England.
With the right service, Charlie Austin will score goals. The former non-league man has proved that time and again, and after a difficult couple of seasons at Southampton, he could well threaten the Championship’s Golden Boot race at West Brom this season. In his first taste of Premier League football, Austin scored 18 goals in 35 games for QPR, trailing only Sergio Aguero, Harry Kane and Diego Costa in the division’s goal scoring charts. QPR still finished dead last, a whopping eight points off survival, and Austin only stuck around for another six months before returning to the top flight.
1. Andrew Johnson – 21 Goals
The ultimate relegated Premier League goal scorer, Andy Johnson bagged 21 goals in 37 Premier League games for Crystal Palace in the 2004-05 season. Only Thierry Henry scored more, as no other player came close to troubling the Golden Boot race. This was Johnson’s first season in the top flight, as his goals had fired Palace to promotion the previous season. He couldn’t keep the Eagles afloat though, and the club finished one point off Premier League survival. Johnson was a brilliant goal scorer whose career was plagued by injuries, and his next best Premier League campaign was an 11-goal haul at Everton in the 2006-07 season.
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