The highest-scoring Asian players in Premier League history

Son Heung-min is comfortably the highest scoring Asian footballer in Premier League history
Son Heung-min is comfortably the highest scoring Asian footballer in Premier League history / Catherine Ivill/GettyImages
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The earliest recorded game that bares the closest resemblance to modern-day football was born in Asia.

The Chinese pastime of cuju - which literally means 'kickball' and is pronounced tsoo-joo - was played more than 2,000 years ago.

More than half of humanity comes from Asia yet the biggest continent on the planet with a rich history in the sport has not had a commensurate impact on the scoring charts of the world's most popular football league.

The Premier League has been home to some of the continent's greatest talents but only one Asian player has ever scored from than 20 times in the history of the Premier League.

There are no prizes for guessing which player tops this particular list but the remaining names may be harder to pluck out of thin air.


6. Kaoru Mitoma (Japan) - 7 goals

Kaoru Mitoma
Kaoru Mitoma swiftly became one of his continent's leading scorers after just one season of Premier League football / Sebastian Frej/MB Media/GettyImages

Kaoru Mitoma burst into Brighton's first team in the second half of the 2022/23 season riding high on the reputation as a master dribbler.

However, the fleet-footed forward has threatened to break as many nets as ankles with a growing taste for goal. In his debut campaign in English football, Mitoma has already scored more goals in a single Premier League season than any other Japanese player (surpassing Shinji Kagawa's haul of six in 2012/13).


5. Lee Chung-yong (South Korea) - 8 goals

Chung-yong Lee
Lee Chung-yong spent nine years in the Premier League with Bolton and Crystal Palace / Bryn Lennon/GettyImages

Half of Lee Chung-young's Premier League haul of eight goals came during a stellar debut season in the division with Bolton Wanderers.

Lee was voted as the club's Player of the Year - the first Asian to ever pick up the gong - with his transition to the English top flight aided by a prodigious work ethic to learn the language.


4. Shinji Okazaki (Japan) - 14 goals

Shinji Okazaki
Shinji Okazaki won the Premier League in 2016 with Leicester City / James Williamson - AMA/GettyImages

The tireless Shinji Okazaki featured in all but two of Leicester City's Premier League fixtures en route to an unforgettable top-flight triumph in 2016.

The diminutive scrapper admitted he had "no talent or technique" and gave in to the reality of "not being good at headers at all" - he only scored two in the Premier League - but made up for it with bucket loads of endeavour and enthusiasm. And a few goals.


3. Ki Sung-yueng (South Korea) - 15 goals

Ki Sungyueng
Ki Sung-yueng played for Swansea City, Sunderland and Newcastle / Stu Forster/GettyImages

Yaya Toure (ten) and Steven Gerrard (nine) were the only orthodox central midfielders that outscored Ki Sung-yueng during the 2014/15 Premier League campaign.

The controversial South Korean international never again replicated those scoring heights in England's top flight but few could say they spent a season rubbing shoulders with two of the division's greatest-ever midfielders.


2. Park Ji-sung (South Korea) - 19 goals

Ji-Sung Park
Park Ji-sung won four Premier League titles with Manchester United / Alex Livesey/GettyImages

Park Ji-sung's trophy haul at Manchester United (11) almost outweighs his scoring tally. But the midfielder with three lungs may have added to his glut of silverware had Sir Alex Ferguson been more proactive - the Scot certainly thinks so.

While Park ranks highly in this list of scorers, his primary strength was an indefatigable ability to nullify opposition threats. To this day, Ferguson still laments not sending Park on to man-mark Barcelona's Lionel Messi in the 2011 Champions League final which United lost 3-1.


1. Son Heung min (South Korea) - 102 goals

Son Heung-Min
Son Heung-min has scored almost double the number of Premier League goals compared to every other South Korean combined / Justin Setterfield/GettyImages

Tottenham's Son Heung-min stands alone as the Premier League's most prolific Asian footballer ever.

The devilishly two-footed forward has been the continent's leading scorer in England's top flight since November 2017, barely two years after joining Tottenham from Bayer Leverkusen. With a century of goals under his belt, Son may well sit atop this particular list for many, many years to come.