Papiss Cissé

By Craig · Published 31 October 2026

For half a season, Papiss Cissé could not stop scoring. He arrived at Newcastle in January 2012, took the No 9 shirt Alan Shearer had worn, and scored 13 goals in 14 Premier League games. The last two came at Stamford Bridge, and the second is still the one people want to talk to him about.

Clubs

Freiburg, Newcastle United, Shandong Luneng, Alanyaspor, Fenerbahçe and more

Premier League

117 appearances, 37 goals, all for Newcastle

Honours

BBC Goal of the Season, 2011/12

International

Senegal, 36 caps, 17 goals

Fantasy price

£7.5m in 2011/12

How he arrived

Newcastle paid Freiburg just over £9m for Cissé in January 2012, on a five-and-a-half-year contract. He had scored 22 Bundesliga goals the season before, and he wasted no time showing why.

He scored on his debut against Aston Villa at St James' Park, and kept going. By the end of the season he had 13 league goals in 14 games, and Newcastle finished fifth.

The moment: Chelsea, 2 May 2012

Newcastle went to Stamford Bridge trying to break into the top four, and Cissé scored twice in a 2-0 win. The first was good. The second is the one that made him.

It was late in the game, and he was running on empty, when Shola Ameobi chested the ball to him out wide on the left. Cissé had expected Ameobi to hold it up, and instead found himself with the ball, about 37 yards out and nowhere near the middle. He hit it anyway, and it swerved over Petr Čech and in. It was voted the BBC's Goal of the Season.

Afterwards, he says, Didier Drogba came over to ask him "where you come from?!" Cissé calls the goal his passport.

The encore: Chelsea, 6 December 2014

Two and a half years later he did it to them again. Chelsea arrived at St James' Park unbeaten in 23 games in all competitions. Cissé came off the bench, scored four minutes later, added a second in the 78th minute, and Newcastle won 2-1. It came in the season he returned from a broken kneecap to score 11 goals in 22 games.

Why the streets won't forget

Newcastle have had bigger stars and better strikers. What they have rarely had is a run like Cissé's spring of 2012. By the time he walked off at Stamford Bridge he had 13 goals in his first 12 appearances.

The case for him is not consistency. He scored 8 in 36 the following season, and the rest of his Newcastle years came in bursts. The case is that for four months he scored the goals strikers spend whole careers waiting for, then scored one that, in his own words, "comes from nowhere".

That is what this series is for. Records tell you who was best. Memory keeps the players who made you stop what you were doing, and Cissé did it twice, to the same club, two and a half years apart.

In a retro draft, his 2011/12 is a lovely puzzle: only half a season of goals, but at a rate few strikers have ever matched.

Where is he now

Cissé left Newcastle for Shandong Luneng in China in July 2016. From there he went to Turkey, scoring 38 goals in 58 games for Alanyaspor before spells at Fenerbahçe and Rizespor, then to Amiens in France, who released him in July 2023. He retired.

It did not stick. In March 2025, at 39, he came back to play for Al Qabila in the UAE, coached by his old Newcastle teammate Steven Taylor.

For Senegal he won 36 caps, scored 17 goals and played at the Africa Cup of Nations in 2012 and 2015.

Which seasons can you draft him in?

Want him in your retro fantasy football team? Pick him in 2011/12 for £7.5m.