Scott Paul Carson (born 3 September 1985) is an English professional footballer who plays as a goalkeeper for Premier League club Manchester City.

He made nine appearances for Liverpool, including the UEFA Champions League quarter-final victory over Juventus in April 2005, before going on loan to Sheffield Wednesday, Charlton Athletic and Aston Villa in successive seasons to gain experience.

After his return to Liverpool from his loan spell at Aston Villa at the end of the 2007–08 season, he joined West Bromwich Albion for a £3.25 million fee in July 2008.

Carson joined reigning Premier League champions Manchester City on loan in August 2019 to provide cover for Ederson and Claudio Bravo.

[5] Although a promising rugby league player as a youth,[6] he instead chose to concentrate on football, playing in goal for his school team from the age of "about 11 or 12".

[8] He spent less than a year in the academy and half a season with the reserves before making his first-team debut in January 2004, coming on as a late substitute after Paul Robinson was sent off against Middlesbrough.

[23] Wednesday sought his services to help solve their goalkeeping crisis, while Carson was looking to gain more first team experience and to challenge for a place in the England 2006 FIFA World Cup squad.

[20][24][25] He kept five clean sheets in nine appearances for Wednesday, whose assistant manager Kevin Summerfield hailed his contribution as a key factor in helping the club escape relegation.

[39][40] He received the first red card of his career when he fouled Carlos Tevez in Villa's 4–1 Premier League defeat to Manchester United.

[44] West Bromwich Albion won promotion back to the Premier League, finishing second, 12 points clear of third place Nottingham Forest with Carson keeping 15 clean sheets out of 43 matches.

[citation needed] He had been playing regular football for the Midlands club, but in the 2010–11 season, his form seemed to dip and in January 2011, Carson was briefly dropped to the bench for Welsh goalkeeper Boaz Myhill.

[45] After the appointment of Roy Hodgson as West Bromwich Albion head coach, he swiftly found himself back in favour at The Hawthorns.

[51] Carson signed for reigning Premier League champions Manchester City on 8 August 2019 on loan for the 2019–20 season, as the third-choice goalkeeper behind Ederson and Claudio Bravo.

[56] On 9 March 2022, in the second leg of the round of 16 of the UEFA Champions League, against Portuguese side Sporting CP, Carson came off the bench with twenty minutes to go to play his first European match in seventeen years.

[60] He thus equalled the record for the longest gap between a first and last European Cup title (18 years), shared with Milan's Paolo Maldini and Alessandro Costacurta.

[64] He was selected in the squad for the 2007 UEFA European Under-21 Championship, and in the third match against Serbia, he earned his 28th under-21 cap,[65][66] eclipsing the record held by Gareth Barry and Jamie Carragher.

[76] A week later, he made his competitive debut replacing Paul Robinson in a crucial match against Croatia, which England lost 3–2, resulting in their failure to qualify for UEFA Euro 2008.

[87] He won his fourth cap as a second-half substitute against Sweden on 15 November 2011, becoming the first-ever Bursaspor player to play for England in the club's history.