Plus: more players ignoring tactical instructions, free-kick flurries and Wembley Stadium’s first resident club
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“Last month, Jeremy Ngakia scored twice for Watford against Oxford to take his career goals total to three from 116 senior club appearances. Excluding players who scored only once, has anybody with 100+ appearances managed a higher percentage of their career goals in a single match?” wonders Peter Skilton.
Denis Boone writes in with the tale of Matthieu Chalmé. “French right-back Chalmé played 362 professional matches during his career, mostly for Lille and Bordeaux,” Denis writes. “He scored four career goals, with three of them coming in a single game. Chalmé netted all three goals in Lille’s 3-0 win at Ajaccio in March 2004, recording the most unlikely of hat-tricks.”
Those three well-taken goals in Corsica were the only ones Chalmé managed in 179 Lille appearances, while in 167 for Bordeaux, he scored once. Well, twice if you count his own goal in the 2010 Coupe de la Ligue final against Marseille. Scoring 75% of his career goals in one game takes Chalmé past Ngakia’s mark (66.7%), but there is a fly in the ointment.
