Lampard, Scholes, Essien: Premier League's Dec 2006 Goal of the Month nominations were insane | OneFootball

What’s more important than winning crucial points in the Premier League? Scoring worldies, of course.

In what is widely considered the strongest domestic league in the world, it’s not surprising to learn that a number of top class goals are scored rather regularly.

So much so that every month, the best goal scored in the division is awarded accordingly, giving us fans a brilliant set of highlights to go back and indulge in the nostalgia of, at ungodly hours when we can’t sleep.

A good goal is ultimately a subjective matter.

Some people love a clinic of total football, seeing an inch perfect passage of team build-up play finely finished off, others love a long-range, spur of the moment thunder strike. One thing’s for sure, though – everyone loves a volley.

And we’re not talking half volleys. No chance. Out with them. Full fat volleys only. And when they go in, they fly in. They should even be worth two goals if they’re really special.

Some months are inevitably better than others when it comes to rounding up the nominees for the ‘Goal of the Month’ award and it means you can sometimes see the winner from a mile off.

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However, there are the occasional months where a freakish number of absolute worldies have been scored across the division, creating perhaps the most underrated race to the top of the mountain in sport.

For all of the incredible goals that fly in every weekend over the years, though, we are still yet to witness a month that topped the freakishly insane list of Goal of the Month nominations for December 2006.

And we’re still pretty sure we never will. It’s that good.

The highlights package of December 2006’s goal of the month nominations has gone viral on Twitter, with a tweet posted by @TheLampardView gaining close to 16,000 retweets at the time of writing and amassing over 84,000 ‘likes’.

So, this must be a pretty special list of goals to earn such numbers, right? Oh yeah. Take a look for yourself below.

WATCH: PL Goal of the Month nominations for December 2006

Blimey. Where do we even start? Michael Essien kicks things off, finishing off a fine bit of Chelsea build-up play by absolutely rifling one into the top corner, first time, against Arsenal. Ice in his veins.

But then we move on to Matthew Taylor, playing for Portsmouth at the time. Stood around the centre circle, just inside the opposition half, he’s first to react to a ball that’s coming out of the air and puts his laces through it, sending the ball looping back into orbit and dipping down once again, into the back of the net.

It’s an absolutely ridiculous volley and one that you can tell he meant, too, which is freakish. Taylor’s strike made Tom Huddlestone’s sweetly taken half volley that was next up look incredibly tame.

The rest of the nominations include Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba running riot against Everton, and Paul Scholes putting a volley top bins off the crossbar from an out-swinging corner.

It was Scholes’ goal for Manchester United that would end up winning the prize. And while it was an absolutely sensational effort that was blasted into the goal and looked stunning to watch, we can’t help but think Taylor was robbed on this occasion. The dip he got on that left-footed volley from that distance is still incomprehensible.