The Oldest Goal Scorers in Premier League History at Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Man City, Man United and Spurs

By Club Ten · Published 27 August 2026 · Updated 28 August 2026 · PL era only · ranked by age at time of scoring

Scoring a Premier League goal in your mid-thirties is a feat in itself. Doing it past 36 puts you in a very small group of players whose bodies lasted longer than almost any of their peers. Here are the oldest scorers at each of the Big Six clubs since the Premier League began in 1992.

This article references the same data as Club Ten's 14 August daily puzzles across all six clubs, a spoiler warning if you haven't played those yet.

Arsenal

Dennis Bergkamp leads at 36 years and 340 days, remarkable for a player who retired from international football years earlier due to his fear of flying. Lee Dixon, a full-back finding the net at 36, sits second. Thierry Henry's goal at 34 came during his brief loan return from New York Red Bulls in 2012, the only player in this list to score as a returning loanee. His winner came off the bench against Sunderland in stoppage time, his last league appearance of the loan spell, not the famous FA Cup goal against Leeds a month earlier that most people remember.

#	Player	Age
1	Dennis Bergkamp	36y 340d
2	Lee Dixon	36y 288d
3	Thierry Henry	34y 178d
4	Tomáš Rosický	34y 148d
5	Andy Linighan	34y 81d
6	Tony Adams	34y 77d
7	Ian Wright	34y 33d
8	David Luiz	33y 312d
9	Nigel Winterburn	33y 284d
10	Martin Keown	33y 267d

Chelsea

Thiago Silva's goal at 39 years and 198 days is one of the most extraordinary in this list, a centre-back scoring in the Premier League at an age when most players have been retired for years. John Terry's final Chelsea goal, the opener in a 4-3 win over Watford in May 2017 during his farewell season, puts him second on this list at 37 years and 69 days, just ahead of Didier Drogba, who had already left and returned to Chelsea before scoring again at 37. Gianfranco Zola's goal at 36 was quintessentially Zola: elegant and seemingly effortless.

#	Player	Age
1	Thiago Silva	39y 198d
2	John Terry	37y 69d
3	Didier Drogba	37y 49d
4	Gianfranco Zola	36y 290d
5	Mal Donaghy	36y 167d
6	Glenn Hoddle	36y 150d
7	Frank Lampard	35y 289d
8	Gianluca Vialli	34y 311d
9	Marcel Desailly	34y 246d
10	Steve Clarke	34y 239d

Liverpool

Gary McAllister's goal at 36 came during Liverpool's extraordinary cup treble season of 2000/01, a famous long-range free kick against Everton in the dying minutes at Goodison. Sami Hyypiä at 35 reflects Liverpool's tradition of getting the very best out of experienced Scandinavian defenders. Mohamed Salah's final Liverpool goal, a record-equalling ninth in Merseyside derbies, came in his farewell appearance against Everton before a hamstring injury ended his last season early. It puts him eighth on this list at 33 years and 308 days.

#	Player	Age
1	Gary McAllister	36y 112d
2	Sami Hyypiä	35y 82d
3	Steven Gerrard	34y 359d
4	Kolo Touré	34y 332d
5	Virgil van Dijk	34y 285d
6	Ian Rush	34y 198d
7	James Milner	33y 356d
8	Mohamed Salah	33y 308d
9	John Barnes	33y 163d
10	Karl-Heinz Riedle	33y 103d

Manchester City

Fernandinho leads City's list at 36 years and 361 days, a figure that reflects how long he remained a trusted part of Pep Guardiola's squad. Frank Lampard's loan spell at City in 2014/15 produced one of the era's most memorable moments, a farewell goal against Southampton in his final game for the club. David Silva's own farewell, in a two-goal week during the 2020 Project Restart, and Yaya Touré's late strike against West Brom in 2017 both round out a list dominated by players who gave the club a decade of continuity.

#	Player	Age
1	Fernandinho	36y 361d
2	Frank Lampard	36y 338d
3	Patrick Vieira	34y 284d
4	Paul Bosvelt	34y 281d
5	İlkay Gündoğan	34y 213d
6	David Silva	34y 189d
7	Michael Tarnat	34y 180d
8	Ali Benarbia	34y 113d
9	Andy Cole	34y 109d
10	Yaya Touré	34y 3d

Manchester United

Ryan Giggs leads United's list at 39 years and 86 days. Scoring Premier League goals into his fortieth year is a feat matched by almost nobody in the competition's history. Paul Scholes at 37, Cristiano Ronaldo at 37 on his return spell, and Bryan Robson at 36, scoring on the opening day of United's first-ever Premier League title defence in August 1993, complete a list that reads like a roll call of United legends.

#	Player	Age
1	Ryan Giggs	39y 86d
2	Paul Scholes	37y 304d
3	Cristiano Ronaldo	37y 246d
4	Bryan Robson	36y 216d
5	Laurent Blanc	35y 314d
6	Zlatan Ibrahimović	35y 188d
7	Henrik Larsson	35y 133d
8	Steve Bruce	35y 56d
9	Teddy Sheringham	35y 19d
10	Edinson Cavani	34y 316d

Tottenham

Teddy Sheringham leads Spurs at 37 years, having also appeared in the Manchester United list above after his years at Old Trafford. Gustavo Poyet at 36 and Les Ferdinand at 35 round out a list that features some of Spurs' most technically accomplished players from the early Premier League era. Fernando Llorente only ever scored twice in the Premier League for Spurs, both in the 2017/18 season, which puts him last on this list at 33 years and 76 days rather than the far higher figure previously listed here.

#	Player	Age
1	Teddy Sheringham	37y 19d
2	Gustavo Poyet	36y 69d
3	Les Ferdinand	35y 266d
4	William Gallas	35y 64d
5	Clive Wilson	34y 314d
6	Noureddine Naybet	34y 277d
7	Ivan Perišić	34y 44d
8	Micky Hazard	33y 326d
9	Jürgen Klinsmann	33y 284d
10	Fernando Llorente	33y 76d

Defenders outlast forwards

You'd expect strikers to dominate a list like this (goals are their job, after all), but defenders and midfielders hold the individual record at four of the six clubs. Thiago Silva (Chelsea), Fernandinho (Man City) and, arguably, Lee Dixon's second place at Arsenal all made their names stopping goals rather than scoring them. The likely explanation isn't that defenders age better than forwards in general. It's that a club's oldest out-and-out striker has usually already left by their late thirties, while a trusted veteran defender or holding midfielder is more likely to still be selected, and therefore more likely to be on the pitch on the rare occasion they do get on the scoresheet.

How wide the six records are spread

Thiago Silva's 39 years and 198 days for Chelsea is the oldest of any club's record on this list, a centre-back beating out Ryan Giggs's famous 39 years and 86 days for Manchester United by more than three months. At the other end, Gary McAllister's Liverpool record of 36 years and 112 days is the youngest of the six club leaders, meaning even Liverpool's outlier falls more than three years short of Chelsea's and United's oldest scorers. Six different clubs, six very different tolerances for playing (and trusting) players deep into their late thirties.

Methodology & sources

Ages are calculated as of the exact date each goal was scored, using each player's official date of birth. Only goals scored in the Premier League itself count (other competitions aren't included), and only Premier League-era goals (1992 onward) are eligible, so any pre-1992 top-flight goals by older iterations of these clubs don't factor in. Figures are cross-checked against Wikipedia player records, contemporaneous match reports, and independent statistics databases such as LFChistory.net and StatMuse before publication, with exact match dates confirmed against direct reporting where a specific goal date was in question. Data runs through the end of the 2025/26 season.