Son Heung-min, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Mohamed Salah help make PL history

| 21 September 2020

There were three trebles in the first 13 games of the top-flight campaign.

Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Son Heung-min helped make Premier League history over the weekend in an unprecedented run of hat-tricks to start the season.

Following Mohamed Salah's opening-week treble for Liverpool against Leeds, Calvert-Lewin emulated the feat on Saturday as Everton hammered West Brom 5-2.

When Son went one better on Sunday, scoring four times in Tottenham's 5-2 win over Southampton, it meant there had been three hat-tricks in the first 13 games of the top-flight campaign.

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp, centre left, congratulates Mohamed Salah on his hat-trick against Leeds — **Liverpool** manager Jurgen Klopp, centre left, congratulates Mohamed Salah on his hat-trick against Leeds (Shaun Botterill/PA)

That is the quickest in the Premier League era, beating the mark of 18 games from the 2010-11 season – the only other occasion when there have been three trebles in the opening two rounds of matches.

That season saw Didier Drogba open the campaign with a hat-trick for Chelsea – with West Brom again on the receiving end. Arsenal's Theo Walcott and Newcastle's Andy Carroll followed suit the next week, against Blackpool and Aston Villa respectively, with all three hat-tricks coming in 6-0 wins.

The latest the third hat-trick of a season has ever been scored was in 2006-07, by Peter Crouch for Liverpool against Arsenal in the 300th game of the season on March 31. The 2013-14 term was the only other occasion the figure has even gone past 200, with Adam Johnson scoring three of Sunderland's four against Fulham in match 202.

Ruud Van Nistelrooy with the match ball after his hat-trick against Southampton in December 2001 — **Ruud Van Nistelrooy** was a prolific collector of Premier League match balls (Phil Noble/PA)

Michael Owen scored two of the first three hat-tricks in the 1998-99 campaign, as did fellow Liverpool striker Luis Suarez in 2013-14. Former Manchester United frontman Ruud Van Nistelrooy registered the third hat-trick of the season three years in succession from 2001-02 to 2003-04.

Prior to the current campaign, there had been 337 hat-tricks scored in 28 Premier League seasons for an average of almost exactly 12 per term – meaning we have already seen a quarter of the hat-tricks to be expected in an average season, and as many as in the whole of that 2006-07 campaign.