Who are Arsenal’s top scorers of all time? Over the years, the club has fielded a number of world-class strikers. As one of the most successful teams in English football, Arsenal was formed in 1886 by 17 gun-factory workers. As every football fan knows, a key element of football success is having elite goal scorers who can score consistently and guide the team to victory. Since they’ve had a lot of excellent attackers play for them throughout the years, Arsenal is not an exception in this respect. Alan Smith, Ian Wright, Henry, and the renowned Cliff Bastin. Find the list of the top 10 Arsenal goalscorers of all time below.
10. David Jack
David Jack, who joined the club from Bolton and is the only member of Arsenal’s all-time top scorers to have been born in the 19th century, played for the legendary manager Herbert Chapman’s Arsenal in the 1930s. Jack reportedly had the first-ever five-figure transfer fee (about £11,000). Many people were surprised by the cost, but Chapman subsequently reflected that “it was one of the best bargains I ever made,” and he was validated in his opinion. When David Jack joined Arsenal for the first time in 1928, he quickly rose to the position of the club’s leading goal scorer, helping him onto the list of the Top 10 Arsenal goalscorers of all time
9. Joe Hulme
Hulme was a member of Chapman’s Arsenal alongside David Jack. Five of the players on this list, including Hulme, were really a vital part of the dynamite Arsenal squad of the 1930s, which won the league five times. Hulme was a highly regular goal scorer over the years, although not being as prolific as many of his teammates on this list due in part to the fact that he played as a winger. Without suffering an injury, he consistently scored 18 goals every season while earning a number of trophies.
8. Robin van Persie
Robin van Persie is the first player from the current era on this list. The Dutchman is not at all well-liked by Arsenal supporters since, while serving as the team’s captain, he departed to join their biggest rivals at the time, Manchester United, and assisted them in winning the Premier League. Many Arsenal supporters would prefer not to have him among the team’s all-time leading scorers, but there are also many who have pleasant memories of him.
7. Doug Lishman
The most notable of the three teams Douglas James Lishman played for throughout his career was Arsenal. Lishman joined Arsenal from Walsall in 1948 for a sum of £10,500. He was brought in to compete and eventually take the place of Reg Lewis, the team’s primary forward at the time who was prone to injuries. However, Lishman soon had his own injury issues, which he subsequently overcame to become one of Arsenal’s all-time leading scorers. After the 1930s, Arsenal lost a lot of their league supremacy, although they still managed to win the league shortly after Lishman joined the team.
6. Jimmy Brain
Technically, two players tie for fifth position among all-time leading scorers for Arsenal, although Brain falls short of Drake due of a poorer goals-per-game ratio. Jimmy Brain, though, was unquestionably one of the finest Arsenal attackers and the team’s leading goal scorer in history. Brain joined Arsenal in 1923, thus he missed out on the club’s 1930s Golden Age, but his final years there coincided with it, and he was a member of the squad that won the club’s first-ever league championship in 1930–31.
5. Ted Drake
Ted Drake was one of the finest English forwards of all time and a Legend of Arsenal. The Englishman was dreadfully effective in front of the net. Only six players, including two on this list, have won the Golden Boot with Arsenal, and he was the first. He scored an incredible 42 goals in 41 games to win the Golden Boot in the 1934–35 season, which saw Arsenal win the title at the end of the campaign. Three hat-tricks and four four-goal hauls were among his 42 goals that season, which is absolutely astounding.
4. John Radford
Raddy was a lifelong Arsenal supporter. Beginning in 1962, he progressed through the Arsenal reserves and youth levels before making the first squad. In the 1965–1966 season, he joined the first team and played there for the next nine years. Despite having started out as a winger, he went on to score 19 goals in the 1968–1969 and 1969–1970 seasons, aiding Arsenal in reaching the Inter-Cities Fair Cup final, which they went on to win. It was also Arsenal’s first European championship trophy in 17 years.
3. Cliff Bastin
One of the greatest English footballers of all time, The Boy Bastin—as the Arsenal players and supporters used to refer to him—was also Arsenal’s all-time leading scorer from 1939 until 1997. He has been commemorated with a mural at Emirates Stadium together with six other players from this list who have also been inducted into the English Hall of Fame of Football. Let’s look at how he came to have such a huge following among admirers, which is just fair.
2. Ian Wright
One of the most adored players in Arsenal’s history is Ian Wright. He joined the team in 1991 from Crystal Palace for a then-club-record £2.5 million cost. He had already established himself as a goal scorer, but with Arsenal, he excelled. Wright scored in both of his club debuts—a League Cup debut and a league debut—scoring a hat trick against Southampton on both occasions. He did the same thing again against Southampton in the league’s last match of the same season.
1. Thierry Henry
Henry, an AS Monaco youth system graduate, was seen by Arsene Wenger, who was Monaco’s manager at the time. He was finally called up to the France National team, where he won the 1998 World Cup. He made the decision to join Juventus in January 1998 after the World Cup. But he was in for a letdown over the next six months in Italy, where he spent most of the time playing out of position as a wingback.
On an airplane, Henry ran into his former coach Arsene Wenger, and the two discussed the potential of Henry joining Arsenal, which he did at the start of the 1999–2000 season. Despite the fact that Henry was a winger, Arsene Wenger requested him to play as a forward because he thought he had the skills of a finisher. Henry had trouble scoring at first, but when he scored his first goal, he never stopped again! Thierry Henry sits comfortably atop the list of the Top 10 Arsenal goalscorers of all time.
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