The 2016/17 season of the Premier League could be labelled as another season of the strikers. Tottenham’s Harry Kane struck an impressive 29 goals in 30 games, while Romelo Lukaku and Alexis Sanchez followed closely behind with 25 and 24 goals respectively. There were eleven hat-tricks hit in England with four of them hit by Kane, and all the top five teams scored more than 70 goals each.
Unfortunately, though, the season wasn’t as fruitful for some of the league’s other strikers as it was for Lukaku and Kane. In fact, some of the Premier League’s top forwards had a downright nightmare in one way or another. It might’ve been a good season for goals, but these strikers all seemed to lose the plot in 2016/17.
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#1 Diego Costa
On the face of it, there’s no way that you could suggest Diego Costa had a bad season in 2016/17. He scored an impressive 20 league goals in 35 games and helped Chelsea to win the Premier League title – their second of the three seasons that the Spain international has spent at Stamford Bridge. But goals aside, Costa’s behaviour could definitely be considered as him “losing the plot”, and it may well have damaged his career irreparably.
Despite being in the prime of his career at 28 years old, Costa showed his immaturity once again this season by falling out with Chelsea boss Antonio Conte in January, apparently over the correct way to handle back pain. Already supposedly frustrated with life in London, Costa then publically flirted with a move to the Chinese Super League – hardly the place for a world-class striker, but somewhere to grab a lot of money in a short space of time.
A potential move to Tianjin Quanjian fell through however and Costa returned to the Chelsea set-up, where he continued to score goals until the Blues won the league. Costa’s behaviour has since come back to haunt him though – a recent text message from Conte to the Spaniard has revealed he’s now surplus to requirements at Stamford Bridge.
Had he stayed onside with the Italian, more success could’ve followed for Costa at Chelsea but now – with potential suitors Atletico Madrid banned from transfer activity – he may find himself forced to China or worse still, frozen out entirely.
#2 Saido Berahino
After an outstanding 2014/15 season that saw him score 14 goals for West Bromwich Albion, young England striker Saido Berahino seemed to have a bright future ahead of him. Since that season though, nothing has gone right for him. An attempt to force a move to Tottenham in the summer of 2015 resulted in him falling out with West Brom’s manager Tony Pulis, and he spent most of 2015/16 out of action.
And 2016/17 was supposed to be the season that the young striker returned to form but instead, things have gotten even worse. After the Baggies turned down offers for him in the summer, he then only played five games for them – including in their League Cup penalty shoot-out loss to League One side Northampton Town where Berahino missed his penalty. Next, he was sent for extra training in France by his club as their medical staff found he was eight pounds overweight.
January saw him finally make a move away from the Hawthorns – to Stoke City – but rather than put his career back on track it seemed to send him further off the rails. In February it was revealed that earlier in the season at West Brom he’d been suspended for eight weeks due to a positive drug test, and then he only made thirteen appearances for his new club and didn’t score a goal.
If he wants to get back into the good books of the fans, it’s imperative that Berahino does better in 2017/18.
#3 Wayne Rooney
2016/17 was a tough season for Wayne Rooney. Despite breaking Bobby Charlton’s record of 249 goals to become Manchester United’s all-time top goalscorer, people will remember the season as one in which he appeared in just 25 league games and only scored eight goals – his worst return since his debut season with Everton over a decade ago.
United boss Jose Mourinho has largely been respectful of Rooney – keeping him as the club captain and rarely saying a bad word about his player, and admittedly, a lesser return is to be expected for a player who’s pushing 32 and has over a decade of Premier League experience behind him. However, his personal actions suggested he’d finally lost it in 2016/17.
In November 2016 Rooney was pictured heavily drunk, complete with wine-stained lips and bloodshot eyes, at a wedding party following England’s 3-0 victory over Scotland. Although Rooney had already been ruled out of England’s following game with Spain, the incident hardly did him any favours with new England boss Gareth Southgate, and he hasn’t been selected for his country since and has been replaced as captain by Harry Kane.
With his club form waning anyway – he may leave United this summer – it looks like Rooney’s drinking habits may finally have caught up with him and cost him his beloved spot with England – a sure sign of a forward that lost the plot last season.
#4 Vincent Janssen
Tottenham’s Dutch striker Vincent Janssen didn’t exactly lose the plot in 2016/17 – it was more that he never managed to find the plot, to begin with despite multiple searches. Signed at the start of the season for £17m, Janssen’s goal record in the Netherlands suggested he’d be the perfect backup to Spurs’ primary striker Harry Kane.
When Kane went down with an injury in mid-September, Janssen was suddenly thrust into first-team action, but unfortunately for him and for Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino, he just couldn’t live up to his end of the bargain. Janssen scored his first Tottenham goal with a penalty against Gillingham in the League Cup in September, and then repeated the feat for his first Premier League goal against Leicester City a month later. Unfortunately, that was about as good as it got.
Janssen just couldn’t seem to find the back of the net for love nor money – he had to wait until January for his next goal – another from the penalty spot – and didn’t score from open play until a March FA Cup goal against Millwall. He only managed another two goals in the Premier League all season, and also managed one of the worst open-goal misses in recent memory against Watford.
With Tottenham openly looking for another backup striker for Kane, Janssen’s future looks bleak at Wembley, and it’s unsurprising given his 2016/17 return.
#5 Simone Zaza
Prior to 2016/17, Italian striker Simone Zaza’s main claim to fame – outside Italy at least – was his missed penalty for his country in their Euro 2016 shootout with Germany – a clip that instantly went viral as it saw Zaza take approximately twelve small steps before blazing the ball high and wide. The miss didn’t put off West Ham though, as they paid a £5m loan fee to Juventus for his services in August.
Apparently, they would’ve had to pay Juve a further £20m if he’d reached 14 appearances, but thankfully for the Hammers – and their fans – he only reached 11. In those 11 appearances, though, the Italian was an absolute horror show. Signed to score goals, Zaza didn’t manage to hit the back of the net once for the London club and was sent packing back to Serie A in January.
His worst moment? His appearance as a substitute against Manchester United in a December League Cup game saw him attempt a shot, only to see the ball somehow go out for a throw-in. He also missed a point-blank header from a corner, causing furious West Ham fans to rant on Twitter about his performance.
Zaza has since moved on loan to Valencia in Spain, where he scored six goals, but his performances for the Hammers certainly justify a place for him on this list - he was simply awful.
