Chelsea's 5 greatest goalscorers of all time

Goals are the cleanest measure we have. A player either put the ball in the net or he didn’t, and the club’s record books keep count. So this ranking starts there, with career goals for Chelsea.

Then comes the opinion. I weigh those numbers against what each player did on the biggest days, because a goal in a final is not the same as a goal on a quiet afternoon. Five names, counting down from five. You may disagree with the order, but I’m sticking with it.

5. Peter Osgood

I’m putting the King at five, and I’m doing it on occasions rather than on a total. Osgood’s goal count is quoted differently depending on where you look, so I won’t plant a flag on a number. What nobody argues about is what he did when the cups were on the line.

He scored the equaliser in the 1970 FA Cup final replay. Chelsea beat Leeds United 2-1 at Old Trafford on 29 April 1970, after a 2-2 draw at Wembley on 11 April. He is also the last player to have scored in every round of the FA Cup. That is a remarkable record, and it says everything about a man who turned up when it mattered.

He was in the side that won the 1971 European Cup Winners’ Cup final against Real Madrid in Piraeus too. The first game finished 1-1 and we won the replay 2-1. If you want to know what he meant to the club, read Peter Osgood - the King is dead, long live the King and RIP Peter Osgood, My Hero.

4. Kerry Dixon

Dixon carried Chelsea through some lean years, and he did it by scoring. The club lists him with 193 goals in 420 games between 1983 and 1992. That is a serious return over nine years.

The start was something else. He scored 34 goals in his first season at Chelsea and 36 in his second. Those are numbers a striker dreams of, and he put them up when it would have been easy for the club to drift.

The goals over those nine years are what earn him four. For sheer consistency of finishing, few have matched him in a blue shirt.

3. Bobby Tambling

Tambling scored 202 goals for Chelsea in the 1960s. That alone puts him on this list. His name was the answer to the question of who Chelsea’s top scorer was.

He held the club record until Frank Lampard passed it in 2013, and that tells you how big the mark was. It was not a number that fell easily.

He’s at three because the record books put him there, and they are fair to him. Two players went further in different ways, one in total goals and one in the biggest games.

2. Didier Drogba

Here is the counter-argument to my own number one, and it’s a strong one. Didier Drogba scored 164 goals for Chelsea, the club record for a non-English player in all competitions. He holds the club records for most cup final goals (9) and most European goals (36). In one season he scored 29 Premier League goals.

Then there are the finals. He scored in four separate FA Cup finals, in 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2012, which is a record. He also scored four goals in League Cup finals. When a trophy was there to be won, Drogba found a way to put his name on it.

And then Munich. In the 2012 Champions League final against Bayern, Thomas Müller put the home side ahead, and we were running out of time. In the 88th minute Drogba headed in a Juan Mata corner to make it 1-1. Chelsea won the shootout 4-3 at the Allianz Arena. Petr Cech saved Arjen Robben’s penalty in extra time, and Drogba scored the winning penalty. Nobody could have written it better.

Read more in Didier Drogba: A Chelsea Legend PLUS His Best Goals. I came close to putting him first. But he is second.

1. Frank Lampard

Frank Lampard is Chelsea’s record goalscorer with 211 goals in 648 appearances. That is the top of the club’s all-time list, and for a midfielder it is almost absurd. Start with the record books and the answer is Lampard, full stop.

The day he got there was a Saturday I won’t forget. On 11 May 2013 Chelsea won 2-1 at Aston Villa. Christian Benteke put Villa ahead, and Lampard equalised in the 61st minute. Then, two minutes from time, he scored again and passed Bobby Tambling’s record of 202. A record that had stood so long fell on a late goal, which is exactly how it should have happened.

Drogba’s finals make this a proper argument, and I respect it. But Lampard gets number one because he did it for so long, from midfield, and that is what the record says. Our greatest goalscorer is also one of our greatest servants. Take a look at Frank Lampard: The Journey of a Chelsea Legend and Frank Lampard - Farewell… to see what the man meant to us.

The verdict

That’s my five. Lampard tops the list on the numbers and on the years he gave us, with Drogba right behind him for the nights that changed the club. Tambling held the record until Lampard took it, Dixon scored when little else was going right, and Osgood was the King. For more from the archive, browse the Blog section. Who would you have in your five?