The Premier League is renowned for being the most entertaining in world football – and a large part of that is the quality of its strikers.
England’s top flight has seen every type of forward in the past 33 years, from poachers and target men to a wave of false nines.
7
That is just one of the reasons why it’s so tough to separate the world-class from the once-in-a-generation Premier League striker.
However, talkSPORT’s Max Scott has managed to whittle down his best from each of the four decades of the Premier League.
As ever, in his Mount Rushmore-or-Less, picking just four names is too difficult, which is why he has argued for a fifth inclusion.
Alan Shearer is an absolute king of the 90s
No Eric Cantona. No Andy Cole. No Robbie Fowler. But how could you ever leave out the Premier League’s all-time record goalscorer?
“There’s one man in the 90s that stands alone,” Scott explained to talkSPORT.com. “It’s Alan Shearer, an absolute king.
“In the 90s alone, he scored 167 goals. In fact, over his career he scored 100 goals for more than one club. Blackburn and Newcastle.
In his entire career, he scored 260 goals in 441 games. Nobody has come close to that record.
“For me, the reason I’ve got to give it to Alan Shearer isn’t just that he’s the all-time Premier League goalscorer. It’s the fact that he scored those goals for Newcastle.
“He didn’t do it for City or Liverpool or United. He didn’t do it with [Kevin] De Bruyne or [Paul] Scholes or [Patrick] Vieira behind him.
“He did it for Newcastle. And I think that adds a cherry on top. Alan Shearer, for me, the greatest finisher the Premier League has ever seen. Categorically the best striker in the 90s.”
7
What is Mount Rushmore?
The faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln are carved into the stone in South Dakota, chosen for their representation of the most important events in the United States’ history.
As a result, fans use the idea to create their own version to list the most influential or iconic games and people that define their selected categories.
Here, though, talkSPORT argues five is not enough, so more or less this is Mount Rushmore.
Thierry Henry is ‘the greatest Premier League footballer of all time’
The 1998 World Cup winner – who has a statue outside the Emirates Stadium – spent eight years at Arsenal between 1999 and 2007.
In total, the he scored 175 goals in 258 Premier League outings, having briefly also returned to the club on loan in 2012.
Reminiscing on the noughties era, Scott said: “This is the era where I really started watching Premier League football. And it was largely because of one man. Thierry Henry.
“The greatest Premier League football player of all time, in my opinion.
“People praise manager Arsene Wenger as the architect of modern football, as the mastermind behind the Premier League becoming what it is today. Well, if Wenger was the architect, Thierry Henry was the builder. He was the site manager.
7
“For me, the best player to ever play in the Premier League. He had everything: the pace, the strength, the grace, the way he’d open up and whip that ball into the bottom right-hand corner. Unbelievable.
“And most notably, think of the omissions in the noughties. No [Didier] Drogba, no [Wayne] Rooney, no Ruud van Nistelrooy or Cristiano Ronaldo. And that is how highly I rate Thierry Henry.
“And when you look at his goals, 30 goals in that invincible season.
But what people don’t talk about is the season before: he got 24 goals and 20 assists.
“He had 74 career assists across his entire Premier League career. For me, unrivalled. The best Premier League striker in the noughties.”
7
Top 10 Premier League goalscorers ever
- Alan Shearer – 260
- Harry Kane – 213
- Wayne Rooney – 208
- Mohamed Salah – 193
- Andrew Cole – 187
- Sergio Aguero – 184
- Frank Lampard – 177
- Thierry Henry – 175
- Robbie Fowler – 163
- Jermain Defoe – 162
2010s is a real tough one
You’ve got Wayne Rooney ‘still being world-class’, while Ballon d’Or nominated Harry Kane emerges as ‘the best striker England have ever produced’.
According to Scott, you’ve also got Luis Suarez, ‘who, for my money, is probably one of the best players to never win the Premier League.’
“But I’m going with Sergio Aguero,” He added. “It’s as simple as 184 goals in 275 appearances.
“And he provided what for me is the most iconic moment in Premier League history. 93 minutes, 20 seconds on the clock against QPR.
“United think the title is theirs. Sergio Aguero, enter stage left; the rest is history.
“For that and that alone, he’s got to be the best striker in the Premier League in the 2010s.”
7
Erling Haaland will go down as the greatest in history
Haaland has been making history and smashing all Premier League records since his arrival at Man City in 2022.
He has the title of being the fastest player ever to reach a tally of 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 100 goals in the Premier League.
The Norway international has also become the fastest player to reach 100 goal involvements in fewer than 100 league games (94).
Haaland, who also holds the record for the most goals ever scored in a single Premier League season (36), is the only player ever to score a hat-trick in three consecutive home league games.
The three-time Golden Boot winner became the first player to score 50+ goals in a top-flight season in England since 1931 in 2023.
7
On the 2020s, Scott said: “This one’s a little bit simpler because we’ve got the absolute phenomenon, the freak of nature. And the lovely guy, by the way; I love the cut of his jib, it’s Erling Haaland.
“He’s already scored 117 Premier League goals in 137 games. And he’s got 24 assists to his name.
“And if he stays at City and sees out his 74-year contract at the Etihad, then he might just overtake Alan Shearer’s record.
“But for me, it’s simple. Erling Haaland is the best striker of the 2020s so far, and you can’t argue with it.”
7
I need to pick a fifth
It’s hard to pick four players because so many have to be omitted and so this is why it’s a Mount Rushmore or less.
“I’ve missed out Andy Cole, Robbie Fowler, Luis Suarez, Harry Kane, Mo Salah, who arguably wasn’t necessarily a striker, but he’s one of the greatest to play in the Premier League.
“But for me, the fifth that I’m going to put carve another place for on the mountain is Wayne Rooney.
“208 goals, arguably the best football player England has produced in his generation. He did everything. He won it all.
“He was the engine room and the heartbeat and the soul of a lot of that Man United side under Fergie [Alex Ferguson].
“I just cannot ignore him. For me, he got me on the edge of my seat.
“He made me love watching Premier League football, even watching Manchester United. So Wayne Rooney is up there as my fifth in my Mount Rushmore-or-less of Premier League strikers.”