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Striker: Thierry Henry
Thierry Henry had a majestic elegance about him and did everything with grace. He was a struggling winger at Juventus, but Arsene Wenger turned him into a spectacular striker who was absolutely lethal in front of goal. He remains Arsenal's all-time leading goalscorer - the fact that he went from an uncertain winger to that tells you everything you need to know about him!
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Even the likes of Ryan Giggs and Cristiano Ronaldo could occasionally get riled up, but Thierry Henry was absolutely unplayable on his day. There was a spell at Arsenal where he won games on his own by doing ridiculous things with the ball and he had the unique ability to score goals as well as create them - sometimes he attracted so many players that it created lots and lots of space for his teammates to exploit!
Henry's dribbling ability was tremendous and he was capable of winning games with his individual brilliance. If defenders got tight to him, he would simply roll them. If they stood him off and gave him two to three yards of space, he'd terrorize them with his acceleration, so he was almost impossible to play against. There was an advertisement for a French car and the phrase they used to describe the vehicle was Va Va Voom - which is associated with the quality of being exciting or vigorous. Considering his style of play, his dynamism and showmanship - Thierry Henry was Va Va Voom!
He absolutely shredded defenders and almost had them going to bed with nightmares - that's the kind of player he was. I'm not advocating this, but I was once asked how I'd stop a player of Thierry Henry's class and caliber and I replied that the only way to do so would be to kick him early on and leave one on him! I wasn't the kind of player who got stuck into tackles, but that would've been my only way of stopping him had I come up against him.
Henry's dazzling brilliance was there for everyone to see and he is undoubtedly one of the greatest players in Premier League history.
Striker: Alan Shearer
260 goals in 441 Premier League appearances - wow! Alan Shearer was a #9 and his job was to score goals, but he was never satisfied and always had half a mind on his next goal. His appetite for the game remained for the entirety of his playing career and he always came back with a greater desire to score goals despite suffering his fair share of injury setbacks.
On his Premier League debut for Blackburn Rovers, he scored two long-rangers and announced himself on the grandest stage in some style. Shearer could hit the ball with real venom, excelled in the air and was also very good in terms of being in the right place at the right time to score what I call pop-ups. He did everything with aggression and force - nothing was tapped in, they were absolutely banged in with sheer decisiveness!
Shearer knew all the tricks of the trade and was very clever in the way he manipulated defenders. He used everything in his locker to achieve what he did and would be a £200 million striker in the transfer market today, that's how good a goalscorer he was!
I worked on his testimonial and we were reliving some of his finest moments - believe me there were so many! He was an unstoppable talent back in the day and is definitely one of the finest attackers to have graced the Premier League.
The likes of Wayne Rooney, Sergio Aguero and Gianfranco Zola all had brilliant careers and can be so proud of what they achieved, but Thierry Henry and Alan Shearer were levels above the rest, in my opinion.
Greatest Premier League XI (4-4-2): Peter Schmeichel; Gary Neville, Rio Ferdinand, John Terry, Ashley Cole, Cristiano Ronaldo, Roy Keane, Steven Gerrard, Ryan Giggs, Thierry Henry, Alan Shearer
