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Strikers are the flashiest players in football. The ones that get the thing that essentially decides who'll win. Goals. Strikers are the players that get the most recognition because they have the most tangible output and hence get all the headlines. While talking about the greatest players of the sport, strikers and forwards are the first examples that come to our mind.
We will be looking at the 5 greatest strikers that the Premier League has ever seen. The definition of striker here would be players that stayed at the center of attack for the majority of their careers. This definition would rule out players like Thierry Henry and Cristiano Ronaldo, who were wingers during their time in the Premier League.
Honourable mentions: Jermain Defoe, Robin van Persie, Dwight Yorke, Robbie Keane and Teddy Sheringham
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#5 Michael Owen
Teams played for: Liverpool, Newcastle United, Manchester United and Stoke City
Michael Owen is a former Ballon d'Or winner, winning the prize in 2001 as a Liverpool player. Considered to be one of the greatest Liverpool players ever, Owen is the last English player to win said prize. He has been the Premier League top scorer twice, getting the accolade in back-to-back seasons of 1997/98 and 1998/99.
Owen has a tremendous record in the Premier League, scoring 150 goals in 326 appearances, with 69 of these being substitute appearances. His impact over the various clubs he played for cannot be understated, but his run with Liverpool is the one that is most fondly remembered, scoring 118 of his 150 goals while at the Kop.
Owen spent one season in Spain, but returned to the PL to play for Newcastle United. After 9 seasons at Liverpool and becoming a favourite of the Kop, Owen did the unthinkable as he joined Manchester United for the 2009/10 season. His tenure at United was a colossal failure, with the man scoring just 5 goals in his 31 appearances for the Red Devils. He retired while playing for current Championship side Stoke City, for whom he scored one goal.
#4 Sergio Aguero
Teams played for: Manchester City
He may not have the nostalgic value of the other players on this list considering he is the only one from this list still playing in the Premier League, but Sergio Aguero may just go down as one of the best strikers in the history of the Premier League. A one-club man in the league, Aguero has been an ever-present fixture at Manchester City since they became one of the best teams in the Premier League.
Manchester City's success and Aguero's success go hand-in-hand. Aguero has led the team to three Premier League title victories by scoring 146 goals. Even though he is 10th on the all-time scoring charts of the Premier League, another 20 goals season would see him shoot all the way up to 6th on the list. He has one of the best goals to game ratio, with his 146 goals coming in just 208 games.
Aguero scored one of the most memorable goals in the history of the Premier League, when his winner against QPR sealed Manchester City's first ever league title. His tremendous goal ratio and his impact on the PL as it became a global commodity gets him into this conversation with ease, probably one day being considered to be the greatest.
#3 Robbie Fowler
Teams played for: Liverpool, Leeds United and Manchester City
If Michael Owen is fondly remembered at Liverpool for his contributions, Robbie Fowler would be considered an absolute legend of the club. Even though his 4-minute hat-trick against Arsenal in the 1994/95 season was what propelled him into the category of a superstar, Fowler had always been a reliable and consistent goalscorer. He started his career at Anfield with an impressive 12 goals in just 13 games.
Even though it is a sham that Fowler never won the Premier League title or the highest scorer in a season, Fowler is the sixth highest scorer in the history of the league with 163 games in 379 appearances. Out of his 379 appearances, 66 of them came as a substitute. Fowler is the first and now one of four men to have won the PFA Young Player of the Year twice.
He left Liverpool and later played for Leeds and Manchester City, scoring 14 in 30 league appearances for Leeds and 21 in 80 for Manchester City. He also represented Blackburn Rovers in the Premier League but never scored for them. Fowler has scored 128 goals for Liverpool in the league, becoming their highest league goalscorer in the Premier League era.
#2 Wayne Rooney
Teams represented: Manchester United and Everton
The second highest goalscorer in Premier League history, Wayne Rooney is one of two men to have scored over 200 goals in the Premier League, and the most for a single club. The record goalscorer for Manchester United, Wayne Rooney is probably the most iconic player for Manchester United in the 21st century and will probably go into the history books as one of the greatest players ever.
The 5-time Premier League champion made his name at Everton but is mostly remembered for his tremendous performances for Manchester United. He has scored 208 goals in 494 appearances. Out of those 494 appearances, he made 70 appearances as a substitute. Rooney broke into the eyes of the world when he was a youngster and fizzled out too early. He scored 183 goals for Manchester United in the league and went on to become the top scorer in one season in 2008/09. He, like Robbie Fowler, has won the PFA Young Player of the Year twice.
After two seasons at Everton, where he scored 15 goals, he went to Manchester United. After a 13 season stint with Manchester United, Rooney returned to the blue side of Merseyside where he scored 10 goals in his final season in the Premier League. He left the club recently and went to play for MLS outfit DC United.
#1 Alan Shearer
Teams represented: Blackburn Rovers and Newcastle United
The only player to have scored 100+ goals for two different teams, Alan Shearer sits atop the Premier League scoring charts with an extremely comfortable margin. With Rooney in second position with 208 goals, Shearer sits at 260 goals over his two clubs in the Premier League. This is an even bigger achievement considering both these clubs weren't necessarily the best clubs at the time.
Shearer led Blackburn Rovers to an upset title victory in the 1994/95 Premier League season where he scored a mammoth 34 goals, 9 ahead of second place Robbie Fowler. Shearer had been part of Blackburn Rovers since the first ever edition of the Premier League where he netted just 16 times, but would score 96 goals in the next three seasons, which came from 117 appearances. He left Blackburn for his hometown Newcastle where he would score 148 Premier League goals in 303 appearances.
Shearer is the only player in PL history to score 30+ goals in three seasons, with him achieving this feat in Blackburn Rovers. Shearer has come third in Ballon d'Or voting and has won the Premier League Golden Boot an unprecedented 6 times. Along with that, Shearer has other PL goalscoring records to his name such as most PL hat-tricks, most penalties scored, most goals from inside the box and most goals in a single match. Shearer was deemed the best player of the first decade of the PL, but it is a crown he holds even today and will probably hold for many years to come.
