In its 30 years as the most watched football league on the planet, the Premier League has produced some great players, and the ones who wrote the most headlines are the sharpshooters.
There is nothing better for a fan to see your hero bust the net, the roof comes off the stadium and it’s the best feeling in the world. And when he does it three times, it’s pure magic and of course, the red-hot hitman gets to keep the match ball.
The first man to score three in a Premier League game was the enigmatic Frenchman Eric Cantona, who stuck three in the net as Leeds United beat Tottenham Hotspur 5-0.
And since then, over 200 players have emulated that feat, some of them with impressive regularity, and here I’m taking a look at the most prolific five.
Sergio Aguero: 12
He’s the fourth highest Premier League goal scorer of all time and the highest non-English scorer, winning a Golden Boot and plundering 184 goals in 275 games for Manchester City.
Aguero is best known as the man who scored the dramatic injury-time winner against QPR to hand the Sky Blues a first Premier League title in 2012 – the first of his four with the club – and he’s also scored more hat-tricks than anyone else.
He scored his first Sky Blues hat-trick in a 3-0 win over Wigan Athletic on 10th September 2011 on the same day as Wayne Rooney scored his sixth for Manchester United.
Aguero played under some great managers at the Etihad, but the Argentine superstar just seemed to get better under Pep Guardiola and he ended his time at Manchester City in spectacular form.
In 2019, Aguero scored two hat-tricks in a week in a 3-0 win over Arsenal and a 6-1 destruction of Chelsea and, in January 2020, he scored his 12th in a 6-1 win over Aston Villa.
Alan Shearer: 11
This Geordie hero made his name as a young striker for Southampton before moving to Blackburn Rovers.
During his four years in Lancashire, he was simply devastating, forming a lethal partnership with Chris Sutton. He scored nine hat-tricks for Blackburn before moving to his home club Newcastle United where he scored two more in his 10-year stint on Tyneside.
Shearer scored his 11th hat-trick in 1999 as Newcastle destroyed Sheffield Wednesday 8-0. He actually banged in five goals on the late Sir Bobby Robson’s first home game in charge of the Magpies.
He may have scored most of his hat-tricks for Blackburn, but Shearer will go down in history as a Newcastle legend.
Robbie Fowler: 9
To be Liverpool’s top hat-trick scorer of all time tells us just what a special player Robbie Fowler was. For a club which has worshipped goal scoring heroes such as Kevin Keegan, Kenny Dalglish, Michael Owen, and Mohamed Salah, to score more hat-tricks than anyone is some feat.
He scored 183 goals for the Reds earning him the nickname “God” on the terraces and he remains Liverpool’s top scorer in the league.
Fowler scored eight hat-tricks for his beloved Liverpool, but his last one came in a 3-0 win for Leeds United over Bolton Wanderers in 2001.
Harry Kane: 8
The one player on the list who will be producing plenty of Premier League 2022 highlights is Tottenham talisman Harry Kane who, at 28 years of age, still has a good few season left in him.
He scored his first hat-trick in a 4-3 win over Leicester City in 2015 and his eighth in a 5-2 win over Southampton is 2017, so Kane is without a three in almost five years.
But he still has time to catch Aguero. With more investment in players this summer and the Premier League 2022 betting odds pitching Spurs as fourth favourites, he will continue to lead the line and expect some great service.
Kane will also lead England into the 2022 World Cup as one of the favourites to win the Golden Boot. He took that prize in 2018 and the SBOTOP odds setters will place him in a handful of candidates in Qatar.
Michael Owen: 8
Like his fellow Scouse, Fowler, Michael Owen scored all but one of his eight hat-tricks for his boyhood club Liverpool.
He had the best years of his career at Anfield between 1996 and 2004 when he had a better than one in two goal ratio, but Owen struggled to hit those heights again after a short spell at Real Madrid and periods at Newcastle United and Manchester United.
But he did score the “perfect hat-trick” for the Magpies in a win over West Ham – one with his left foot, one with his right foot, and one with his head. Had he stayed at Liverpool throughout his career, then I suspect Owen may well be higher up this list.
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