Ex-Portsmouth and Coventry favourite achieves rare goal-scoring feat aged 27 after Premier League landmark

Conor Chaplin’s opener for Ipswich in Sunday’s 2-1 defeat against Bournemouth represented his maiden Premier League goal.

It also marked the impressive accomplishment of having netted in all four divisions of the top flight and Football League by the age of 27.

Chaplin was a teenager when he opened his goal account at Morecambe in April 2015, when he was introduced off the bench and netted for the Blues in a miserable 3-1 defeat.

Now, nine-and-a-half years later, he has completed the clean sweep, with goals also arriving in League One with Pompey and Ipswich, the Championship with Ipswich, Coventry and Barnsley - and, of course, the Premier League.

It’s a remarkable haul for the striker from Worthing, who drove a Fratton Park exit to Coventry in August 2018 in search of regular first-team football.

He progressed through Pompey’s ranks to make his first-team debut under Andy Awford in December 2014 and went on to score 25 times in 122 appearances.

On his sixth Pompey outing, an 18-year-old Chaplin netted at Morecambe in what would prove to be Awford’s last match in charge, with the club languishing 14th in League Two.

He went on to score in four successive campaigns, including eight league goals in the 2016-17 League Two title-winning season under Paul Cook.

Among that haul was a stunning last-gasp equaliser from long range to earn a point in a 1-1 draw at Barnet in February 2017.

However, it was his memorable finish against Wycombe in September 2016 which earned the attacker Pompey’s Goal of the Season in that promotion campaign.

Racing onto Gary Robert’s ball over the top into the left channel, Chaplin lifted the bouncing ball over defender Anthony Stewart, before cleverly sending an angled header past Jamal Blackman in a 4-2 success.

The following season, now under Kenny Jackett in League One, he scored five times, including successive games against MK Dons and Blackburn in February 2017.

However, he had become tired of primarily a substitute role and pushed to leave, with Coventry being his destination.

Chaplin scored eight Championship goals for the Sky Blues in 2018-19, before being sold to Barnsley in July 2019, where he netted 15 times in the Championship in two seasons.

The striker then reunited with Paul Cook at Ipswich in July 2021 and, to date, has scored 55 times in 160 outings in three different divisions - with Sunday’s Premier League strike accomplishing a memorable landmark.