Premier League's greatest super subs: BBC Sport picks all-time top 10
A BBC Sport journalist has ranked the English Premier League's ten best-ever substitutes. Jermain Defoe is first, with a record 24 goals scored after coming off the bench.
In English football's Premier League, the country's top club competition, BBC Sport senior journalist Alex Bysouth has ranked the ten greatest "super subs" of all time. These are players who repeatedly changed games after coming on from the bench. Only footballers who delivered consistently throughout their careers, through goals and assists, were considered.
Top of the list
England's Jermain Defoe is ranked first. He scored 24 goals as a substitute, every one in a different match, which is a Premier League record. Five of them were match-winners. He scored six times off the bench in his debut Premier League season, and his final goal in the competition came 17 years later, when he rescued a stoppage-time point for Bournemouth at Watford.
Nigeria's Nwankwo Kanu is second, with 17 goals and 12 assists as a substitute. Norway's Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is third. His best-known moment was the stoppage-time winner against Bayern Munich in the 1999 Champions League final. In the Premier League he scored 17 goals as a sub, and his rate of one every 83 minutes is the best in the competition, matched only by Edin Dzeko.
The rest of the ranking
Dzeko, now 40 and playing for Bundesliga club Schalke, is fourth. Mexico's Javier Hernandez is fifth, Norway's Tore Andre Flo sixth, and France's Olivier Giroud seventh, with 21 of his 90 goals coming off the bench. Daniel Sturridge is eighth, Victor Anichebe ninth, and Theo Walcott tenth. Walcott's 14 assists as a substitute are the joint-most in Premier League history.
The author also mentions players who missed out, including Adam le Fondre, who holds the record for most goals off the bench in a single Premier League season, with five.
