Raheem Sterling & the 7 Other Players Who Scored Premier League Opening Week Hat-Tricks
By completing a hat-trick in
Saturday's thrashing of West Ham United, Manchester City's Raheem
Sterling joined an exclusive list of just seven other players who scored
a treble on the opening weekend of a Premier League season.
Here is the list of the other stars who bagged three on the opening day of the Premier League campaign.
Micky Quinn
The first ever player to score a
hat-trick in the opening week of the Premier League season was Coventry
City's Micky Quinn, who scored the only goals in the Sky Blues' 3-0 win
over Arsenal back in August 1993.
Quinn,
who scored 17 goals for Coventry City the season prior, didn't score
again for nearly three months and his hat-trick against the Gunners
would turn out to be a highlight in a relatively underwhelming season,
in which he scored just eight times.
Matt Le Tissier
The second player to score a Premier League opening week hat-trick was Southampton legend and penalty master Matt Le Tissier, when he hit three past Nottingham Forest goalkeeper Mark Crossley in August 1995.
Despite
Le Tissier's hat-trick, the Saints failed to beat Forest, losing 3-4 at
The Dell. It would go on to be a difficult season for both Le Tissier
and Southampton, with the Guernsey-born attacking midfielder failing to
reach the heights of the previous seasons while Southampton struggled
against relegation for much of the 1995/96 campaign.
Kevin Campbell
The third player was Nottingham
Forest's Kevin Campbell, who scored three in their 3-0 win over Coventry
City on the opening day of the 1996/97 Premier League season.
Like
with Quinn and Le Tissier, Campbell's opening day hat-trick would prove
to be a highlight in what was a difficult season for both himself and
his club. Forest failed to win another match until December after their
opening day win, ending the season rock bottom of the Premier League,
while Campbell could only score three more goals over the course of the
season.
Fabrizio Ravanelli
Also scoring on the opening day of the 1996/97 season was Middlesborough striker Fabrizio Ravanelli, who scored a hat-trick on his debut in Boro's 3-3 draw with Liverpool following a £7m move from Juventus.
Ravanelli
would go on to have a prolific season at the Riverside Stadium, scoring
a whopping 31 goals in 48 total appearances for Middlesborough but
couldn't save them from relegation to the second tier.
Dion Dublin
Dion
Dublin is the second Coventry City player to appear on this list, with
the former England striker-cum-defender scoring an opening week treble
in Sky Blues' 3-2 defeat of Chelsea in August 1997.
The Homes Under the Hammer
presenter would go on to become joint top-scorer of the Premier League
alongside Michael Owen and Chris Sutton that season, scoring an
impressive 18 goals in 36 appearances. His form earned him a move to Aston Villa in 1998 but he controversially failed to make the England squad for the World Cup.
Gabriel Agbonlahor
Aston Villa's Gabriel Agbonlahor
became the first Premier League player to score an opening day hat-trick
in over a decade when he put three past Joe Hart in Villa's 4-2 defeat
of Manchester City back in August 2008.
Agbonlahor
went on to have one of the best seasons of his career, with his 11
goals in 36 Premier League appearances helping Aston Villa to an
impressive sixth place and qualification to the Europa League.
Didier Drogba
Didier Drogba became the seventh
player to score a hat-trick on the opening day of the Premier League
campaign as the Blues thrashed West Bromwich Albion 6-0 at the start of
the 2010/11 season.
It
was a highlight in what was, comparatively, an underwhelming season for
both the Ivorian and Chelsea. Drogba only found the back of the net 13
times compared to the previous season's 37, while the Blues failed to
win a single trophy.
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