Who were the top 10 goalscorers before the PL started ?
I think that would be a another interesting debate.
I think that would be a another interesting debate.
MotD: Top 10 goalscorers of Premier League era
- Thread starter Fortitude
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So Div.1 (say last 30 years?). Assuming goals is the focus...
Greaves would be No.1 for me.
Law, Charlton, Best obviously come to mind because of United... all scored lots even Best from wide
off the top of my head then .... Ian Rush, Ian Wright, Malcolm McDonald, Allan Clarke, Mick Channon (scored loads), Andy Gray, Gary Lineker, Kerry Dixon, Kevin Keegan, Tony Cottee, John Aldridge
1. Shearer
2. Henry
The rest on the list were/are not on the same planet when you're talking about ruthlessness/Genius as a striker over 8 seasons in the PL. Neither of them played for a sugar daddy club either proving their calibre even further
2. Henry
The rest on the list were/are not on the same planet when you're talking about ruthlessness/Genius as a striker over 8 seasons in the PL. Neither of them played for a sugar daddy club either proving their calibre even further
Absolutely. For anyone to put Rooney above Cole is a nonsense.
Aguero is in that company.
Somehow Drogba manages to insert himself in these conversations. Had some important moments for Chelsea but like 9 in years in the prem and only ever scored more than 12 league goals twice (and this was Chelsea at their most dominant). Ehhh.
Jermaine Defoe probably has a better record
Jermaine Defoe probably has a better record
Thanks for the reply.
Interesting names there. I know of them,especially the United greats, and seen a few highlights but its rarely ever talked about.
I know alot about PL forwards and I think that conversation alittle tiresome now as I was born into it but before hand I know very little of the English game regarding certain players outside of the obvious big names.
1 Shearer
2 Henry, Ronaldo
4 Rooney
5 Cole
6 Aguero
7 RVN
8 Kane
2 Henry, Ronaldo
4 Rooney
5 Cole
6 Aguero
7 RVN
8 Kane
All good players but Rush was a level above (the non United players) and Greaves was better than Rush.
Shearer and Van Nistelrooy for me are the best pure goalscorers. Top players too but Henry and Ronaldo were better overall players for sure and great goalscorers too. They scored so many goals because they could do everything and were such dominant overall players.
Ruud for me if you just want a goalscorer, Hold-up and link up play is excellent and lethal with both feet and head. He could also dribble pretty well too. What separates him from Shearer is his Champions League performances. Shearer could well have matched him there if he had transferred to Utd rather than Newcastle in '96 but we will never really know.
Rudy was a monstrous goal scorer, and in a relatively weak team from what I remember. He carried us for a time.
Cole has 187 PL goals, Lampard has 177. Cole didn’t take pens and Lamps scored 60 pens. Deduct pens and it is 187 to 127.
How is that even a debate.
Cole has the 3rd most goals in PL history. He also has goals before the PL even began.
That’s 117 goals if you take away 60, Lampard scored 178 league goals.
A lot of Lampards goals were hit from just outside the area and he wasn’t a striker
Lampard is the highest scoring midfielder in premier league history
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I think he needs to win a Champions League to be placed in that company, considering the embarrassment of talent he is surrounded by on a weekly basis.
The entire pre Premier League era can be divided into 3-4 periods, methinks — and you could then allocate one outstanding striker for each of those periods...
• Infancy of the First Division: Steve Bloomer is arguably the best goalscorer for this period, ahead of Johnny Campbell. Most of the stuff related to him is predicated on anecdotes and hearsay, but he did also dominate the scoring charts for close to a decade.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1079050/top-scorers-english-league-since-1888/
• Between the Wars: Probably Dixie Dean, who also holds the record for goals scored in a season with 60!
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• Post-World War II: Jimmy Greaves would be the consensus pick as he is the highest First Division scorer of all time (conveniently followed by Bloomer and Dean)...
http://www.rsssf.com/tablese/engtops-allt.html
In terms of goalscoring, Ruud was arguably better than Henry . Its just that he played for a relatively weak side that his contributions keep getting downplayed.
Plus Henry's heading ability was pretty average tbh
Plus Henry's heading ability was pretty average tbh
Match of the day doing these kind of things is a first step, and a pleasant one at that, but they need to refine and define these discussions instead of leaving them so nebulous and open ended.
If they want to assess goalscoring and goalscorers off the back of that, then surely gpg as well as total goals are the only factors.
If they want to discuss big game performance and goals there in, separate the categories and criteria to goals in finals, knock out competition and big 4/6 games.
Who you have, and where, would surely change between the two categories.
If they want to assess goalscoring and goalscorers off the back of that, then surely gpg as well as total goals are the only factors.
If they want to discuss big game performance and goals there in, separate the categories and criteria to goals in finals, knock out competition and big 4/6 games.
Who you have, and where, would surely change between the two categories.
For a post-war top 10, I'd think you'd add in Greaves, Rush, Law and Lofthouse. Greaves is clearly numero uno.
The only players with more than 150 goals in the top flight and a better than 0.6 goals-per-game ratio are:
Greaves - 357, 0.69
Aguero - 180, 0.69
Henry - 176, 0.68
Lofthouse - 200, 0.62
Shearer and Rush have lower ratios, but that's offset by lower productivity when they were teenagers and slowing-up-30-somethings as they don't have the fortune of doing what Aguero and Henry have done and spending their peak years here only.
Fuller list here: https://www.worldfootball.net/alltime_goalgetter/eng-premier-league/tore/1/
Quite a few guys from the 1950s and 1960s there, but I'd take some of their ratios with a pinch of salt given how high the goals-per-game average was at the time (around 3.5gpg compared to around 2.5gpg in the 1970s, 1980s and 2000s). On that count Rush and Henry impress for racking up goals in defensive eras and when English football was dominating Europe.
Shearer's pre-injury and ageing segment would be interesting for gpg as he was absolutely ridiculous before he had to modify his game.
Well yes. Shearer from 1992 to 1997 was 0.81 goals per game. Ridiculous really. Some players have got close to that for a couple of seasons, but I can't think of anyone bar Greaves who has maintained that level for a sustained 5 year period.
That's the real Shearer, for all intents and purposes. Such a shame injury effectively ruined him despite him still being a solid contributor to his teams.
He should be regarded as one of the best because he was literally the best on the planet, best in the PL and incredibly successful during his time in the PL. Irrelevant of his time at RM.
Phillips as you used as an example, was not the best player on the planet, didn’t win anything. Owen, for all of his PL goals, didn’t win the any PL’s at Liverpool
Ronaldo drove United to multiple PL titles and as such, on that merit alone, deserves to be within the top 10.
Come on, it's only a half hour show.
Not sure what you're referring to? The players would be established beforehand and then go from there.
Big game scorers should be a podcast of its own, as some huge players in those weren't particularly prolific i.e. Drogba, Hughes, and so forth. Gives them their due without detracting from anything else.
Yeah peak Shearer was mostly with us, and not with Newcastle (of course he was still excellent for them as well). He scored 112 league goals in 138 league appearances for us, and 148 in 303 appearances for Newcastle. He got injured and missed of half of his first season with us in 1992/1993 as well, otherwise his record would surely have been even better. He was insanely ruthless and clinical in front of goal.
And he scored in plenty of big games and against the top clubs as well, so he was far from a flat-track bully or whatever.
Ronaldo would have smashed every record if he stayed in England as long as most on the list
I remember arguing with people that Ronaldo would definitely have broken the 40 goal Premier League barrier multiple times had he stayed at Utd, with them responding (nonsensically in my opinion) that the Premier League defenses were 'too tough' to allow that or something.
Ronaldo has been amazing for a long time, but probably his 'ultimate peak' co-incided with when Mourinho and Ancelotti were in charge at Real Madrid, with him scoring 280 goals in all competitions for them during those 5 seasons (and for most of those seasons I think he was very rarely injured - I know he spent more time injured during Pellegrini's 1 season in charge there than he did during all 3 of Mourinho's combined), and when he was aged between 25-30.
He scored 31 Premier league goals in 2007/2008 at the age of 22/23. 4 years later in 2011/2012 for example when he scored 46 goals in La Liga and 60 overall, he was clearly an even better player at the age of 26/27 and a more deadly finisher, while to me the overall standard of Premier League defending looked to have noticeably declined at that point compared to the period when Ronaldo played in England. Does anyone really think that the Ronaldo of the early to mid part of the last decade, and (subjective I know) up against weaker defenses overall compared to a few years earlier, wouldn't have broken the 40 league barrier?
Of course I'm not saying that subjective hypotheticals like that should be factored in this particular list, it's just a general point.
Very well put. Their criteria and then their list doesnt really tally I.e. if its goals scorers then Cole should be much higher on the list however you might have Drogba in your team before Cole.
I wonder how does Ole, Defoe and kevin Philip's compare to their lists in terms of goals per game? The top 10 goals per game in the PL would be very interesting...who's up for the challenge of compiling that one?
Who Aguero's teammates in City squads do think are better than Giggs, Scholes, Beckham? David Silva, KdB, Samir Nasri, Adam Johnson, Jesus Navas?
De Bruyne, Mahrez, Sterling, Rodri, Laporte, Bernard Silva, Fernandinho, Cancelo are all either world class or very close to that level.
David Silva was world class in the past.
Gundogan and Ederson really top players.
Foden would probably be the best midfielder in the country if he was at a club willing to give him 15 games in a row until he starts performing. Leroy Sane will probably become World class at another club.
Vincent Kompany, Yaya Toure, Carlos Tevez are some of the teammates he's had over the years.
City were looking like Champions again this season until Laporte got injured.
Shearer
Henry
Aguero
Ronaldo
Lampard
Henry
Aguero
Ronaldo
Lampard
Blackburn absolutely were a sugar daddy club.
The CL has nothing to do with how good a PL striker he is. Neither of the other pair won the CL in England either so that’s an odd shout.
True but not for long. One minute they had money, next minute none. But yeah Shearer would have won a lot there had they been able to keep spending.
Anyways Aguero is obviously amazing, but as a striker I'd have him at Rooney level, slightly behind Henry and Shearer as an all time best PL striker.
1. Shearer, played for shite teams but still able to score a lot of goals.
2. Kane, his teammates aren't as good as other strikers on the list, but his record is amazing.
3. Suarez, single handedly carried shit Liverpool squads with Andy Carroll and Jay Spearing in it.
4. Rooney, United squads weren't as good as in his early days, but he kept scoring.
5. Henry, any strikers would score many goals if had Bergkamp as his partner (mind you Kluivert still holds the record for Netherlands), a brilliant Pires (I'd take Pires over any City AM bar KdB).
2. Kane, his teammates aren't as good as other strikers on the list, but his record is amazing.
3. Suarez, single handedly carried shit Liverpool squads with Andy Carroll and Jay Spearing in it.
4. Rooney, United squads weren't as good as in his early days, but he kept scoring.
5. Henry, any strikers would score many goals if had Bergkamp as his partner (mind you Kluivert still holds the record for Netherlands), a brilliant Pires (I'd take Pires over any City AM bar KdB).
By the time Henry got to Arsenal Bergkamp was only starting 20~ games a season for Arsenal and Henry scored 27 league goals in the 05-06 season when Bergkamp was essentially done.
Considering that he scored at the same ridiculous rate for Real Madrid in the CL bagging dozens of goals against the likes of Bayern, Juve, Atletico et al, there’s not really much doubt he would have obliterated every goalscoring record in England injury permitting. He would have been so far ahead of everyone that there wouldn’t even be any debate on who the best is/was. Would more likely be debating who’s 2nd best. He’s amassed 437 league goals including his time at United which is almost double the goals held by the record goalscorer in the EPL.
For that list I’d go with:
1. Shearer
2. RVN
3 Henry
In terms of pure goalscoring
Hasselbaink probably does too.
Drogba definitely is the odd ball in that list of choices.
I agree with @MrEleson above me regarding the top 3 in my mind as well. Especially when you factor in the strengths of the supporting casts.
Cole is quite far down most folks lists but has scored a huge amount of premier league goals.
Personally I feel Lampard should be in the top 10- his goal scoring record, for a midfielder, is extraordinary.
Personally I feel Lampard should be in the top 10- his goal scoring record, for a midfielder, is extraordinary.