James Tavernier overtakes Graham Alexander to claim defender goalscoring record

James Tavernier’s goal in Rangers’ 3-1 cinch Premiership win over Hibernian made him the highest-scoring defender in British football history.

The full-back’s 131st career goal took him past Graham Alexander’s record and here, the PA news agency looks at how the pair compare.

Graham Alexander – 130 goals

Former Scotland full-back Alexander broke the record of Steve Bruce, who scored 114 career goals between 1979 and 1998 including 52 for Manchester United.

Like Tavernier, Alexander was a noted penalty specialist with spot-kicks accounting for 77 of his career goal tally, from 85 attempts for a conversion rate of over 90 per cent.

He scored 24 goals for his first club Scunthorpe, playing in the Football League’s bottom two tiers from 1988 to 1995, then 17 in four seasons at Luton including his first strike in what is now the Championship.

A long first spell at Preston brought him 64 in 400 appearances, including 10 in the 1999-2000 season and 12 in 2002-03 when he matched striker Ricardo Fuller as North End’s top scorer.

A move to Burnley brought a further 24 goals in four seasons, including seven in his lone Premier League campaign in 2009-10, and he scored twice in the 2011-12 season back at Preston including fittingly curling home a free-kick with the last kick of his career.

His goals came in 1,025 career appearances, including 40 for Scotland – though he surprisingly never scored an international goal.

James Tavernier – 131 goals

Tavernier described his achievement as “crazy” with manager Philippe Clement calling it “really quite exceptional” and the statistics bear that out with his goals coming in just 569 career appearances – a scoring rate of a goal every 4.3 games from right-back.

Now 32, he shows no signs of slowing down with age and indeed has broken the 20-goal mark in all competitions this season, with 22, for the first time. Rangers have eight league games remaining, plus a Scottish Gas Scottish Cup semi-final and potential final.

All but eight of his career goals have come since his move to Ibrox in 2015, with earlier loan spells at Rotherham and Bristol City accounting for five and three respectively in England’s League One.

He scored 15 in his first Rangers season and has met or exceeded that mark six times in all with penalties – scoring 65 out of 82 (79 per cent) in his career, with one of those misses coming for Wigan – and free-kicks a key factor in his remarkable record.

He has scored 88 of his 123 Rangers goals in the Premiership and 20 in Europe – 15 in the Europa League and five in the Champions League. In the domestic cups he has four in the Scottish Cup, nine in the League Cup and two in the Challenge Cup.

He has been Rangers’ top scorer in the last three seasons – outright in 2020-21 then tying with Alfredo Morelos the following season and Antonio Colak last term – and leads the way by five this time around.