Evan Ferguson equals Wayne Rooney's Premier League milestone, but now wants to surpass it

Brighton and Ireland striker Evan Ferguson reached another milestone on Sunday, becoming the first teenager since Wayne Rooney to score ten Premier League goals in a calendar year in the Seagulls’ 1-1 draw against Fulham at the American Express Stadium.

The 19-year-old forward’s low left-foot shot past Bernd Leno after 26 minutes put him in good company alongside England’s all-time top scorer, who hit Premier League nets 11 times for Manchester United in 2005 before turning 20 on October 24. 

“Yes, not bad, not bad,” Ferguson said. “Especially as a kid looking up to him and watching Wayne Rooney play, so that’s not bad news.”

Rooney, Ferguson said, had been something of a role model as he attempted to break into Brighton’s first team.

“A little bit, yes. Obviously just seeing the way he was and seeing his documentary now, how young he was and what he did at that age, it shows it’s not impossible, you know what I mean?”

One difference is that Rooney, then 19, was already an established Premier League and international striker at the beginning of 2005, having joined United from Everton for £20m the previous summer.

Ferguson, who was 19 earlier this month, only scored his first Premier League goal on December 31 last year as a substitute at home to Arsenal, and made his first top-flight start four days later, scoring again away to Everton.

He has every chance of beating Rooney’s 2005 total, as Brighton play nine Premier League games over the two remaining months of 2023. “Yes, hopefully,” he said. “I’ll try.”

He might already have surpassed Rooney but for a combination of injury and illness that laid him low soon after his headline-grabbing hat-trick against Newcastle United on September 2. His next goal did not come until