From the back, to the back of the net: Goalscoring centre-backs

Club

5 Nov 2024

One statistic ahead of Saturday was that no Premier League team’s matches had featured more goals this season than Wolverhampton Wanderers’ – so an entertaining match was always on the cards when Crystal Palace came to Molineux.

Perhaps less predictable, however, was the fact that both of the Eagles’ goals were scored by members of their back line.

Trevoh Chalobah and Marc Guéhi are both more commonly associated with preventing goals than scoring them – the former had 10 previous strikes in 196 senior appearances to his name before Saturday, and the latter seven in 184.

But both centre-backs demonstrated the instincts of a predatory centre-forward to steer home the ball following a set-piece routine, netting crucial goals for their side.

Indeed, according to our records it was the first time two centre-backs had scored for Palace in the same league game since James Tomkins and Scott Dann did so, in a 4-1 win against Stoke at Selhurst Park in September 2016.

But for which Palace centre-backs in the Premier League era did that goalscoring feeling become something of a habit?

Top of the charts

Step forward Scott Dann who, after signing from Blackburn Rovers in January 2014, went on to score an impressive 13 times for Palace in 164 Premier League appearances – or 16 in 181 in all competitions.

‘Scott Dann is a Goal Machine’ was the popular refrain from the Selhurst Park terraces, a fitting homage to the centre-back’s – and later captain’s – tendency to find space at set-pieces, and bury a bullet header beyond a flailing goalkeeper.

Everton, Aston Villa and Liverpool – memorably in a 2-1 win at Anfield in November 2015 – were among the sides who suffered such a fate.

Second in Palace’s goal-scoring centre-back charts is the aforementioned Tomkins – seven of whose 10 Premier League goals for Palace, interestingly enough, were scored by his feet.

The former West Ham academy graduate’s best returns came in his first two seasons with the club, when he netted three goals apiece.

His final strike, fittingly, arrived in February 2023 – a poacher’s effort against Brighton & Hove Albion.

Third in the list? For Premier League goals, that honour goes to a trio of outstanding early 1990s performers: Eric Young’s six goals in 1992/23 earns the adventurous Welshman his place in the list.

He stands alongside former captains Chris Coleman (five in 1992/93, and one in 1994/95) and Gareth Southgate (three apiece in 1992/93 and 1994/95) on six Premier League goals for Palace – albeit the former was, on occasion, deployed as a forward for the Eagles.

01 / 03

Beyond the Premier League era

Palace are well-stocked for recent centre-backs who have regularly hit the back of the net outside of the top-flight before the year 2000.

Tony Popovic (eight in all competitions); Leon Cort, Damien Delaney and Mark Hudson (seven each); and José Fonte, Clint Hill, Paddy McCarthy and Darren Ward (six apiece) all chipped in with regular goals since the turn of the millennium.

01 / 08

Looking further back, however, and record appearance holder Jim Cannon’s total of 30 goals (in 660 games in all competitions) is difficult to topple – albeit some of those coming from a more advanced position on the pitch.

Palace’s first-ever Player of the Year in 1971/12, John McCormick, was not impartial to finding the back of the net, having scored three times as Palace secured promotion to the top-flight in 1968/69; he finished his Palace career with seven goals to his name.

And it is two centre-backs, of course, who own significant pieces of Palace history: the late, great Mel Blyth, and late '80s favourite Gary O’Reilly.

In our first-ever top-flight match – against Manchester United on the opening day of the 69/70 season, a blockbuster game which drew a then-record 48,610 fans to Selhurst – it is Blyth who was on hand to head the Glaziers into the lead in an eventual 2-2 draw.

O’Reilly, meanwhile, wrote his name into the history books by not only scoring in the 1989/90 FA Cup semi-final win over Liverpool at Villa Park, but then duly became our first-ever FA Cup Final goalscorer, in that famous 3-3 draw with Manchester United at Wembley.

Related News

More News