Topics: Harry Kane, Alan Shearer, Lionel Messi, Tottenham, Southampton, English Premier League
He also surpassed Lionel Messi's goalscoring feat in Tottenham’s 5-2 win over Southampton.

On Tuesday, Harry Kane took to the field on Boxing Day. Tottenham was one of several clubs in action on Tuesday, hosting Southampton at Wembley Stadium.

All eyes were on the English forward. With 36 goals under his belt in the Premier League in 2017 alone, he was only a goal shy of breaking Alan Shearer’s record of most goals in the English top-flight in a calendar year.

It took Kane only 22 minutes to write his name in history, opening the scoring to surpass Shearer’s record. However, the Three Lions ace did not stop there. He grabbed his second goal of the game 17 minutes after his first before completing his hat-trick in the 67th minute.

That means the new record for most Premier League goals in a calendar year now stands at 39 strikes, a number that might not be beaten anytime soon. That wasn’t the only record Kane set, however.

His three-goal haul on Tuesday was his sixth hat-trick in 2017. No player in the competition’s history has scored as many hat-tricks in a calendar year. He also became the first player to score back-to-back hat-tricks twice, having netted three past Burnley in Spurs’ previous game.

As if those two records were not enough, the 24-year-old finished the year as the most prolific striker in 2017 in Europe’s top five leagues. His tally of 56 goals for club and country was enough to see him overtake Lionel Messi. Not a bad year for the Englishman.