Striker David McGoldrick was on target in Derby County’s Easter fixtures to take his goals return for the 2022/23 season to 21 in all competitions.
McGoldrick, who joined Derby last summer as a free agent after leaving Sheffield United, rounded off the scoring in the 2-0 success at Forest Green Rovers on Easter Friday and followed that up with a close-range finish in the 1-1 draw at home to MK Dons on Bank Holiday Monday.
From the 35-year-old’s goals return this term, 18 have come in the league, two in the Emirates Cup and a single strike in the Papa Johns Trophy.
That return has now equalled his best-ever scoring since in a season after he netted 21 in all competitions for Coventry City and Ipswich Town in the 2012/13 campaign, initially in League One with the Sky Blues before stepping up to the Championship with the Tractor Boys midway through the season.
For Derby, it has been equally rare to have a striker netting more than 20 goals in a campaign since the early 1990s so McGoldrick now sits in a unique list of players to have found the back of the net on so many occasions in the season.
In fact, since Dean Sturridge bagged 20 in the 1995/96 promotion season to the top-flight it is a return it had only been achieved three times prior to the current season - by Chris Martin in the 2013/14 (25) and 2014/15 (21) seasons respectively and Matej Vydra in 2017/18 (22).
McGoldrick, who is now on 146 goals in club football from a lengthy career, has also netted a staggering THREE hat-tricks for Derby this term - having not scored a single hat-trick in his playing days prior to this term.
