A FORMER Saints striker is poised to overtake Arsenal legend Thierry Henry as the leading MLS marksman in New York Red Bulls history.

Bradley Wright-Phillips took his MLS tally to 50 with a double strike in last weekend’s remarkable 7-0 cross-city thrashing of Patrick Vieira’s New York City FC.

The result saw Frank Lampard, on his first appearance of the season for New York City, jeered by some of his own supporters.

Lampard is the fifth highest wage earner in the MLS with an annual salary of around $6m – roughly £4.1m in English money.

Lampard, Andrea Pirlo and David Villa earn more than the whole of the Red Bulls’ squad combined.

Wright-Phillips, for example, earns about a tenth of Lampard’s salary.

It is money well spent, though, as Wright-Phillips has now belted 50 MLS goals from only 86 matches.

The 2014 Golden Boot winner is now just a single goal behind equalling Henry’s club record MLS total of 51 goals.

Amazingly, Wright-Phillips has scored his goals far quicker than the man who was leading Premier League marksman in 2002, 2004, 2005 and 2006.

Henry scored his 51 goals in 122 games.

Wright-Phillips was the MLS top scorer in his debut season in 2014 – hitting 27 goals in only 32 matches.

Last year, in 2015, he was fifth highest with 17 goals – with Villa and Robbie Keane (LA Galaxy) two of the four men ahead of him in the goal charts.

Last weekend’s brace took his 2016 MLS tally to five in six games – he had also scored twice in a 3-2 win against Orlando on the opening day last month.

Wright-Phillips’ success story stateside has been in contrast with his form for Saints.

A £750,000 signing from Manchester City in the summer of 2006, Wright-Phillips was to score 22 Championship goals for Saints in 113 matches – 58 of which were starts.

Wright-Phillips was released by Saints in the summer of 2009 and joined Plymouth.

He moved onto Charlton and was the Addicks’ top scorer with 22 goals when they won promotion from League 1 in 2011/12.