Manchester City: Dzeko joins the Four-midable club
Manchester City striker Edin Dzeko took a while to settle to the pace of the Premier League but he has certainly found his feet now. The £27m striker’s four-goal haul against Tottenham at White Hart Lane has allowed him to take his place alongside an elite bunch of Premier League footballers. That performance has also made the doubters really sit up and take City’s title charge seriously.
Everyone dreams of scoring a hat-trick or the winner for their club. However, some people just aren’t satisfied with three, they want four, and it isn’t such a rare thing as you would think. Dzeko has become the 18th Premier League player to have scored four or more in one match since the Premier League was formed in 1992. Robbie Fowler, Andy Cole, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Michael Owen have all managed it twice during their careers. But Dzeko is only the seventh player to have scored his four on the road.
Here are the six other players who have scored four on the road:
- Norwich City’s Efan Ekoku was the first player to hit four in the Premier League. The English-born Nigerian international striker made an immediate impact at Carrow Road and gave Mike Walker’s high flying Canaries a remarkable 5-1 win against Howard Kendall’s Everton in 1993. Ekoku scored 16 times in 38 appearances for the East Anglian club before joining Wimbledon for £900,000. Mike Walker soon left Norwich for an unsuccessful spell at the Toffees.
- Chelsea’s Gianluca Vialli joined Ekoku’s exclusive club in 1997 when he put four past Barnsley in a 6-0 win for the boys in Blue. Chelsea were already two up before the Italian got his first just before half-time. A second half hat-trick completed the rout and Vialli wrote his name in Chelsea folklore.
- German international Jurgen Klinsmann added his name to the four-midable list at the end of the 1997/98 season with his four goal-haul against Wimbledon at Selhurst Park. The former Tottenham striker returned to White Hart Lane on loan in the 1997/98 season and needed just less than 19 minutes to achieve his membership to the distinguished club. He scored nine times in 15 games to save Spurs from the drop. He retired from the professional game after that season.
- Manchester United’s Ole Gunnar Solskjaer became the fourth member of the club when he came off the bench to score four against Nottingham Forest in February 1999. The Norwegian hitman, who would go on to score the winner in the Champions League final for the Red Devils that season, only needed 12 minutes to hammer Forest. The super sub scored 126 times in 366 appearances for United and, in December 1999, he became the third player to score four times twice, behind Robbie Fowler and Andy Cole, when he helped United beat Everton 5-1.
- Liverpool’s Michael Owen became the first English player to score four on the road in April 2003 when the Reds thrashed West Bromwich Albion 6-0. Owen, who had previously scored four against Nottingham Forest in a 5-1 win in 1998, was the fourth player to have scored four twice and became the fifth member of the exclusive four on the road club. The England hitman spent just one more season at Anfield before joining Real Madrid.
- It was another six years before the club welcomed its next member, Arsenal’s Andrei Arshavin. The Russian became the first player to score four on the road and not leave as a winner when Arsenal drew 4-4 at Anfield in April 2009. Arsene Wenger spent £16 million to secure Arshavin in January of that year and this was what the Arsenal fans expected from their new hero. Unfortunately that still remains the highlight of Arshavin’s Arsenal career and the fans would welcome just one goal from him now and again.
Manchester City’s Edin Dzeko became the club’s latest addition on August 28, 2011, with a sublime performance against Spurs and becomes the first Bosnian to join the table.
With the likes of Aguero, Tevez, Rooney, Hernandez, Suarez and Bent kicking around the Premier League this season I wonder how long it will be before we welcome another new inductee to the club?
Here is the list of players who have scored four in the Premier League in full:
Efan Ekoku (Norwich) Everton 1 Norwich 5 (25.9.93)
Andy Cole (5, Man United) Manchester United 9 Ipswich 0 (4.3.95)
Robbie Fowler (Liverpool) Liverpool 5 Bolton 2 (23.9.95)
Robbie Fowler (Liverpool) Liverpool 5 Middlesbrough 1 (14.12.96)
Gianluca Vialli (Chelsea) Barnsley 0 Chelsea 6 (24.8.97)
Jurgen Klinsmann (Spurs) Wimbledon 2 Spurs 6 (2.5.98)
Michael Owen (Liverpool) Liverpool 5 Nottm Forest 1 (24.10.98)
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer (Man United) Nottingham Forest 1 Manchester United 8 (6.2.99)
Andy Cole (Manchester United) Manchester United 5 Newcastle 1 (30.8.99)
Alan Shearer (5, Newcastle) Newcastle 8 Sheffield Wednesday 0 (19.9.99)
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer (Man United) Manchester United 5 Everton 1 (4.12.99)
Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink (Chelsea) Chelsea 6 Coventry 1 (21.10.00)
Mark Viduka (Leeds) Leeds 4 Liverpool 3 (4.11.00)
Michael Owen (Liverpool) WBA 0 Liverpool 6 (26.4.03)
Thierry Henry (Arsenal) Arsenal 5 Leeds 0 (16.4.04)
Yakubu (Portsmouth) Portsmouth 5 Middlesbrough 1 (15.3.04)
Dimitar Berbatov (Spurs) Spurs 6 Reading 4 (29.12.07)
Frank Lampard (Chelsea) Chelsea 6 Derby 1 (12.3.08)
Andrei Arshavin (Arsenal) Liverpool 4 Arsenal 4 (21.4.09)
Jermain Defoe (5, Spurs) Spurs 9 Wigan 1 (22.10.09)
Louis Saha (Everton) Everton 5 Blackpool 3 (5.2.11)
Edin Dzeko (Manchester City) Spurs 1 Manchester City 5 (28.8.11)
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