The stats behind United's 2,000 Premier League goals

Scott McTominay was the man to record the landmark strike, in what was the Reds’ 1,048th game in the competition.

To mark this momentous occasion, we’ve taken a detailed look at the numbers behind the record...

BY PLAYER

Some 110 different players from 33 separate nations contributed to the 2,000 strikes, while 66 own goals also helped us towards that figure. Here are our top 10 Premier League scorers:

Wayne Rooney – 183 goals
Ryan Giggs – 109
Paul Scholes – 107
Ruud van Nistelrooy – 95
Andy Cole – 93
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer – 91
Cristiano Ronaldo – 84
Eric Cantona – 64
David Beckham – 62
Robin van Persie – 48

BY OPPONENT

We’ve managed to score at least five goals against each of the 48 other clubs who have played in the Premier League since 1992. Our favourite opponents are Everton, who we’ve racked up exactly a century of goals against, although we’ve averaged the most goals per game (4.25) against Bradford City.

Everton – 100 goals
Newcastle – 97
West Ham – 94
Tottenham – 91
Aston Villa – 87

BY VENUE

United have scored at least one goal at every stadium we’ve played at in the Premier League – that's a whopping 60 different venues! Old Trafford accounts for 1,112 of our first 2,000 in the competition, while 888 have been scored away from home. Here are our five favourite grounds for goals, aside from the Theatre of Dreams:

Goodison Park – 45
St James’ Park – 45
White Hart Lane – 39
Upton Park – 38
Villa Park – 36

BY SEASON

The Reds have top-scored in 12 of the 27 completed Premier League seasons. The most strikes we’ve managed in a single campaign is 97, in 1999/00, although, strangely enough, we failed to win the title in three of our five most prolific seasons.

1999/00 – 97 goals
2011/12 – 89
2001/02 – 87
2009/10 & 2012/13 – 86

BY DAY OF THE WEEK

Unsurprisingly, Saturday accounts for more than half of our Premier League efforts, with Sunday clear in second. Thursday (16) and Friday (17) are the least productive days for United in terms of Premier League goals, although we have only played nine and 10 games on those days respectively - usually around the festive period.

Monday – 113
Tuesday – 103
Wednesday – 190
Thursday – 16
Friday – 17
Saturday – 1113
Sunday – 448

MILESTONES

Mark Hughes got us off the mark in the Premier League, scoring in a 2-1 defeat to Sheffield United back in August 1992. Our 1,000th strike in the competition also came in defeat; this time Cristiano Ronaldo hit a late consolation in a loss at Middlesbrough. Here is a list of our landmark efforts in the top-flight since 1992:

1 – Mark Hughes v Sheffield United (August 1992)
100 – Andrei Kanchelskis v Wimbledon (November 1993)
500 – Andy Cole v Nottingham Forest (February 1999)
1,000 – Cristiano Ronaldo v Middlesbrough (October 2005)
1,500 – Dimitar Berbatov v Blackburn (December 2011)
2,000 – Scott McTominay v Norwich (October 2019)

AGE-RELATED RECORDS

Ryan Giggs is our oldest scorer in the Premier League. The Wales winger registered the last of his 168 efforts for the club against Queens Park Rangers in February 2013, at 39 years and 87 days old.

At the other end of the spectrum, Federico Macheda is the youngest player to find the net for United in the competition. The forward, who left the club in 2014, memorably scored an injury-time winner against Aston Villa at Old Trafford in April 2009. The Italian came on as a substitute for his debut, aged just 17 years and 227 days.

HAT-TRICKS

Twelve United players have hit 30 hat-tricks between them in the Premier League. Wayne Rooney leads the way on six, followed by Ruud van Nistelrooy (five) and four players tied on three.

Wayne Rooney – 6 hat-tricks
Ruud van Nistelrooy – 5
Andy Cole, Dwight Yorke, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer & Dimitar Berbatov – 3

PENALTIES

Of our 2,000 goals, 108 have come from the penalty spot. Twenty different players have successfully scored a spot-kick for United in the Premier League:

Wayne Rooney – 20 penalties scored
Ruud van Nistelrooy – 18
Eric Cantona – 14
Cristiano Ronaldo – 11
Denis Irwin – 8
Paul Pogba – 7
Robin van Persie – 6
Louis Saha – 4
Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Marcus Rashford, Ryan Giggs, Steve Bruce, David Beckham, Juan Mata, Anthony Martial – 2
Javier Hernandez, Teddy Sheringham, Ander Herrera, Paul Scholes, Jesse Lingard – 1

GOALS PER MATCH

The Reds have failed to register in just 160 of our 1,048 Premier League games. Here's a breakdown of how many times we've managed to score a certain amount in a game in the competition:

No goals – 160
One goal – 292
Two goals – 282
Three goals – 179*
Four goals – 90
Five goals – 31
Six goals – 8
Seven goals – 3 (v Barnsley 1997, West Ham 2000 and Blackburn 2010)
Eight goals – 2 (v Nottingham Forest 1999 and Arsenal 2011)
Nine goals – 1 (v Ipswich 1995)

*Includes the Norwich game on 27 October 2019

INJURY-TIME EFFORTS

Finally, we’ve gained something of a reputation for scoring in added time during the Premier League era, and that certainly bears out in the statistics. Ninety-seven goals – almost five per cent – of the 2,000 hit the back of the net in the 90th minute or later!

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