The thing about Premier League hat tricks is that they creep up on you. One moment a match feels balanced. The next, a single player has ripped it apart, turned defenders, and left a goalkeeper staring at the ball in the net over and over. The best Premier League hat tricks do more than pile up goals. They bend title races, embarrass organised back lines, and turn good forwards into names every fan knows by heart.
This list walks back through 11 Premier League hat tricks that really did all of that. Different eras, different styles, the same feeling. A game that starts normal and ends with players and fans looking around thinking, what on earth just happened.
Why Hat Tricks Still Hit Different
Premier League hat tricks cut through the noise of long seasons. In a league full of smart pressing shapes and video sessions, it is rare for one player to take over a match on their own. When they do, you feel it.
These games show more than finishing. You see timing of runs, how a striker reads space, how team mates feed the same hot hand again and again. They are also perfect snapshots of an era. How high lines defend. How much patience managers give keepers and centre backs who are getting pulled apart.
Across three decades of Premier League football, hat tricks have also tracked the league’s shift from traditional number 9s to drifting forwards and playmakers who score in bunches. Put all that together and these performances become a pretty clean way to study how the league changed, and who pushed it there.
Methodology: Rankings are based on official Premier League statistics, club archives, and trusted match reports, with weight on quality of opponent, stakes, record impact, and how the performance still feels in the modern game when you watch it back. Ties lean toward hat tricks that shifted titles or set clear records.
The Hat Tricks That Changed Everything
11. Andy Cole v Ipswich Town 1995
Old Trafford knew this was trouble for Ipswich after about 20 minutes. Manchester United kept breaking the offside line, and Andy Cole kept finding pockets between centre backs. By the time he rolled in his fifth goal, late in the second half of a 9 0 win, Ipswich looked drained and Cole knew he had stamped his name on the league. He later admitted he could feel a hat trick coming and refused to ease off.
Cole became the first Premier League player to score 5 in a single match, and that 9 0 scoreline still sits tied as the biggest win in the competition. Only a small group of players have matched a 5 goal haul since. In that sense, this game still sits on its own tier of ruthless finishing.
You can hear the crowd building with each finish when you watch it back. It is not just noise. It is that amused disbelief when a home end realises they are watching something rare. I have gone back to those highlights plenty of times and the fourth goal still makes me laugh. Ipswich defenders chasing shadows, Cole cutting across the box as if he is in a training drill.
The performance also helped cement United’s aura at home in the mid 90s. Visiting sides already feared Old Trafford. After this, they knew that if the dam cracked once, it might not stop.
10. Alan Shearer v Sheffield Wednesday 1999
By the time Sir Bobby Robson sat down in the Newcastle dugout for his first home league match, pressure around the club felt heavy. The response was a 8 0 beating of Sheffield Wednesday, with Alan Shearer helping himself to 5.
Shearer had gone 6 league games without a goal. Then he hit one from open play, another from a tight angle, a header, and rounded it off with a penalty to equal the Premier League record for 5 in a match. The volume of goals was one thing. The variety told you his finishing toolbox was still full.
Fans inside St James Park talk about that day with a particular grin. They had worried their number 9 might be fading. Instead, he walked off with the match ball and his name back at the centre of the league. One comment from the time summed it up. He looked like he could have stayed out there all night.
That game reset Shearer’s story at Newcastle and showed how thin the line is for forwards. A bad few weeks can flip back in 90 minutes when everything drops right. The league has seen plenty of hat tricks. Very few where a star silenced so many doubts in one afternoon.
9. Robbie Fowler v Arsenal 1994
This one barely took time to breathe. Anfield, August 1994, and a young Robbie Fowler facing an Arsenal defence known for discipline and experience. Within 4 minutes and 33 seconds, he scored 3 times and walked away with a new Premier League record for fastest hat trick.
Fowler’s finishes showed three different strengths. A sharp run and low shot for the first. A poacher’s tap in at the back post. Then a calm one on one to finish the spell. For context, that record stood for over 20 years until Sadio Mané cut it almost in half.
Supporters still talk about how quiet that famous Arsenal back line looked. They were used to pushing up and catching forwards offside. Fowler just kept moving a half step earlier and punished every hesitation. A fan said later that it felt like someone had turned the match to fast forward for five minutes.
Looking back, this hat trick announced Fowler as more than a local kid with a good left foot. It marked him as one of the most natural finishers the league has seen, and set a bar for quick fire scoring that almost nobody has touched.
8. Harry Kane v Southampton 2017
Some hat tricks feel like sprints. Harry Kane’s on Boxing Day 2017 felt like a statement spread across ninety minutes. Tottenham hosted Southampton at Wembley and Kane arrived with 53 goals in the calendar year, level with big names like Lionel Messi at the top of world scoring charts. By full time, he had 56 and another Premier League hat trick.
Two headers and a neat finish across the keeper showed his range. The numbers behind it stick out. Kane moved past Alan Shearer’s previous league record for calendar year goals and matched some of the best totals seen in modern European football. The hat trick was not against title rivals, but it confirmed his place in that global conversation.
What I remember most is not even the goals. It is his calm jogging back to halfway after each one. Wembley crowd roaring, Kane with that same focused stare, as if he had walked in from a shooting session rather than a live match. His manager later called him a player who always wanted one more chance. That day, he got more than enough.
For younger Premier League forwards, this hat trick became proof that a modern striker could blend volume and consistency. It was not a one off run. It was part of a year where he kept scoring at a rate the league rarely sees.
7. Kevin De Bruyne v Wolves 2022
When a midfielder scores 4, you know something strange is going on. At Molineux in May 2022, Kevin De Bruyne tore Wolves apart with a hat trick inside 24 minutes and a fourth later on, three of them with his supposedly weaker left foot.
City were in a tight title race with Liverpool and needed control. De Bruyne gave them that and more, becoming only the third City player to score 4 in a Premier League match and the first midfielder in the league’s modern era to do it with that level of shot quality. Stat models rated his output that night in the very top band for individual performances all season.
You can see Wolves players looking confused each time he bursts through. Do you track the run. Do you step to the pass. By the time they decide, he is already hitting another low shot inside the post. A teammate joked later that they were all just trying to stay out of his way.
In the longer view, this match captures what City have become. Not only a side with a scoring number 9, but a team where their main playmaker can suddenly turn into a penalty box predator for one night and settle a title chase almost on his own.
6. Erling Haaland v Nottingham Forest 2022
Erling Haaland arrived in England with hype and numbers from Germany that did not look real. Within his first 5 Premier League starts he already had 2 hat tricks. The second came against Nottingham Forest at the Etihad, where he scored 3 inside 38 minutes and made the league look like a video game.
City ran out 6 0 winners. Haaland’s treble pushed him to 9 league goals in 5 matches, the best start by any player in Premier League history. Stat lines from that stretch showed him averaging more than a goal a game from relatively few touches in the area, proof of that strange talent for always arriving where the ball drops.
Watching live, you could feel a shift. Defenders did not just look beaten. They looked wary even when he did not have the ball, constantly checking their shoulders. A fan said online that Forest’s back line spent half the night turning around expecting him to be there.
As seasons pass and his totals climb, this early hat trick will read like the first chapter. The moment the league realised that the numbers from his previous clubs might not slow down much at all.
5. Sadio Mané v Aston Villa 2015
Before Erling Haaland started breaking pace charts, Sadio Mané broke the stopwatch. Playing for Southampton against Aston Villa in May 2015, he scored his 3 goals in 2 minutes 56 seconds, setting the record for fastest Premier League hat trick and taking Robbie Fowler’s old mark almost clean off the books.
The sequence barely gave anyone time to sit down. A rebound smashed in, a composed finish after racing clear, then a deflected strike that curled past the keeper. That treble came inside the opening 16 minutes of the match, which turned into a 6 1 Southampton win. Stat sheets since then still list Mané at the top of the speed list for hat tricks.
St Mary’s sound that day tells the story. A mix of laughter, disbelief, and that immediate chant of his name that keeps getting louder each time he scores. I remember thinking that this looked less like a winger on a hot streak and more like someone auditioning for a bigger stage. Liverpool clearly felt the same.
Mané’s record has survived waves of high scoring seasons and new attacking systems. Every time someone races to 2 goals early, broadcasters still mention that target of 2 minutes 56. That is how you know the mark landed.
4. Dimitar Berbatov v Liverpool 2010
Not every hat trick looks frantic. Some are slow burns, stitched together with touches that feel almost too calm for the occasion. Dimitar Berbatov’s treble for Manchester United against Liverpool at Old Trafford in September 2010 is a perfect example.
United led 2 0 through two Berbatov goals, including a ridiculous overhead kick that dropped in off the bar. Liverpool fought back to 2 2, only for the Bulgarian to rise late and head in his third for a 3 2 win. He became the first United player since 1946 to score a league hat trick against Liverpool and finished that season as the division’s joint top scorer.
Old Trafford’s reaction to the overhead said everything. Players sprinting to him, fans on their feet, even the television commentary sounding a little stunned. You can see Berbatov’s face stay almost blank, as if he is above the chaos he has just created.
In a club with so many famous forwards, this match is the day that often gets mentioned first when people talk about Berbatov. It is not just the three goals. It is the style. A reminder that composure can be just as brutal as power when a big rival comes to town.
3. Thierry Henry v Liverpool 2004
Arsenal’s unbeaten league season nearly cracked in early April 2004. They had just crashed out of the cup and the Champions League. Liverpool led 2 1 at Highbury. Then Thierry Henry decided the story was not finished.
He scored 3 times in a 4 2 win, including that solo run where he drifted past three defenders and slid the ball home while the stadium seemed to hold its breath. The hat trick pushed Arsenal 7 points clear at the top and kept the unbeaten league run alive.
Afterward, Henry spoke about feeling the stadium breathe with him when he scored, while Arsène Wenger said it almost looked like he just chose to score. That line sounds dramatic, but if you watch the replay it makes sense. Liverpool midfielders back off, defenders fall away, and he glides right through the gap.
Highbury that day is still one of my favourite crowd sounds. There is genuine fear in the air at 2 1 down, then a surge of belief the moment Henry’s second goes in. You can almost feel everyone thinking, right, we are not giving this season up.
In the long view of Premier League hat tricks, this one sits near the very top because of what it protected. It kept the Invincibles season on track and turned a wobble into another legend around Henry’s name.
2. Robin van Persie v Aston Villa 2013
Sometimes a hat trick is really a coronation. When Manchester United travelled to Aston Villa in April 2013, they knew a win would secure the league. Robin van Persie made sure there was no suspense, scoring 3 in the first 33 minutes of a 3 0 victory.
His second that night might be the cleanest title clinching goal in Premier League memory. A long pass over the top from Wayne Rooney, van Persie watching the ball drop over his shoulder, then catching it on the full volley into the far corner. His movement and timing looked like something from a training drill, only with a trophy on the line. Match reports at the time highlighted how his goals directly delivered Sir Alex Ferguson’s final league title.
United fans talk about that night with a kind of soft pride. They had seen years of late comebacks and nervous finishes. This was different. One striker stepping up early, saying, we are not leaving this to chance.
As a Premier League hat trick, it mixes pure technique, importance, and narrative in a way very few can match. The volley lives in clips, but the whole performance stands as one of the cleanest title sealing displays any forward has produced in England.
1. Sergio Agüero v Newcastle United 2015
There is dominance, and then there is what Sergio Agüero did to Newcastle in October 2015. City actually went behind early. By the 62nd minute, they led 6 1 and Agüero had scored 5 of them, with a hat trick wrapped up inside 20 minutes either side of half time.
He became only the fifth player to score 5 in a Premier League match and did it in 64 minutes before being taken off. The finishing clinic included a header, low curlers from the edge of the box, and one sharp stab after a ricochet. Later in his City career he would end up with 12 Premier League hat tricks, more than any other player.
Watching the highlights now, you can see Newcastle defenders lose all sense of distance. They drop off, step up at the wrong times, and still cannot get close. Agüero just keeps drifting into small gaps, almost casual, then exploding into a shot. Pep Guardiola once called him a player who scored goals from nowhere. This match is the perfect proof.
Among Premier League hat tricks, this sits at number 1 here because it hits every measure. Volume. Variety. Shock factor. And the way it confirmed that when Agüero was in full flow, there was very little any back line in England could do about it.
What Comes Next
The modern Premier League throws up more hat tricks than the early years, with deeper squads, higher lines, and more minutes from added time. That means this list will never feel complete. Someone new is always lining up for three more under the lights.
The interesting question is where the next great chapter comes from. A pure number 9 who lives in the box. A wide forward who drifts inside. Or maybe another playmaker like De Bruyne who decides, for one night, that passing can wait.
At some point another hat trick will knock one of these performances out of the top 11. That is the fun of it. Which game will be the one that forces everyone to redraw the list.
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I’m a sports and pop culture junkie who loves the buzz of a big match and the comfort of a great story on screen. When I’m not chasing highlights and hot takes, I’m planning the next trip, hunting for underrated films or debating the best clutch moments with anyone who will listen.
