Alright, list time, PL era #9s (include Shearer or not depending on how much you watched him–I was a bit of a youngin so am going to conveniently leave him out. Don’t include Rooney, Tevez, CR7, Messi, Bergkamp, Del Piero, Baggio, only pure 9s…not sure whether to include Raúl here)
Ronaldo
Henry
Suárez
RvP
Shevchenko
Agüero
Torres
Benzema
Lewandowski
Eto’o
Ibrahimovic
Villa
Drogba
Kane
Falcao (or Forlán? )
The rest: Romario, Higuaín, Batistuta, van Nistelrooy, Aubameyang, Berbatov, Klöse, Wright, Costa, Forlán, who am I forgetting? (Inzaghi, but wouldn’t consider him for the top 15. Trezeguet, but again, find a hard time making space for him in that top 15…Morientes, but same goes)
*Amended list:
Ronaldo
Henry
Suárez
RvP
Shevchenko
Agüero
Torres
Benzema
Eto’o
Lewandowski
Ibrahimovic
Villa
Romario (on the strength of that epic season for Barça)
Shearer (obligated to put the unappealing bastard in here)
Strange list. Eto’o is firmly in front of Van Persie, no discussion there for me.
I’d probably put Eto’o on the third place, if I’m only looking at that list.
Yeah, when I do lists like this I usually consider how good a player was at their very peak, as long as it was sustained over at least a season. Longevity and stuff like that comes in after. That’s why RvP > Eto’o for me. You could definitely make a case for moving him up above Torres, or moving someone like Ibra up above Torres though, but Torres at his peak was one of the players who most impressed me.
Yeah, really tough to compare them when you look at the time period in between…
I gotta say, Suarez in his last year in Liverpool, and first two years at barca was magical… Probably deserves that third place.
Tough to make a list when is spans over a big time period.
Shearer was getting a 22 goal season as late as 03-04 but at his peak was hitting PL totals of 31, 34, 31, 25. And Romario was probably peaking a bit before that.
Depending how far you go back you have World Player of the Year George Weah, who while not prolific scored some incredible goals.
Benzema and Drogba shouldn’t be top 15 and neither are fit to lace Romario or Batigoal’s boots. Maybe you’re too young to remember them at their peak.
The more I look at this list the angrier I get lol. You’ve left out Batistuta, Romario, Wright, RVN and included Kane, Drogba, Benzema, Torres, Aguero!!!
I’m absolutely shaking brother. I really am. This list triggered me enough to like an ACM post.
I think I do agree about leaving Van Big Nose out because he was limited and a bit of a 6 yard box merchant and getting service from Beckham/Giggs/CR7 etc. Giroud might well be a 25 goal striker if he had Beckham/Giggs/CR7 crosses on his head and took penalties. He also wasn’t great in link up play. I’d rate players who can make their own goals higher.
I forgot about Fowler and Owen too. From 94-96 Fowler was on fire and the best natural striker of the ball in the game and had 30 goals+ for 3 seasons. Injuries and a lack of discipline got in the way of what should of been a world class career. Same with Owen’s injuries.
It’s a fallacy that RVN was a limited 6 yard box player. He was an excellent dribbler, supreme movement, clinical finishing, very hard working. Dropped deep a lot to pick the ball up and be involved in the link up phase of the game too. Here’s just two quick examples of RVN being great outside the box.
EDIT: He was a cunt and I hate defending him but I think Arsenal fans (and probably football fans in general) don’t give him enough props. He was a supreme striker. There was that spell from about 1998 to 2007 where he scored 174 goals in 227 for PSV, United and Real Madrid (I deducted the 01 and 05 seasons from the stats because he was injured in both seasons so that skews his stats).
He was ridiculously clinical at the highest level.
Let’s not also forget he has the SECOND greatest goals per games ratio (behind Messi) in Champions League history at 0.77 per game (56 goals in 73).
He was a big game player, who scored and performed in the big fixtures. It’s just so simple to say he was a “tap in merchant” or he was “limited” because he wasn’t. RVN was a supreme striker at his peak. That’s why he played for Manchester United and why he transferred to Real Madrid.
I hate defending him because he was actually a player I hated probably the most back in the peak Fergie-Wenger years.
Any more goals like that Fulham one? I ask cos everyone remembers that one, imo because it stands out so much next to the kind of goals we were more accustomed to him scoring.
Any goals from outside the box for Man U either?
“excellent dribbler” is way overdoing it imo haha
Two of those four main qualities you’ve highlighted there are the traits of box players though, to me just reinforcing the fact that I think of him predominantly as a box player. And as I said, “excellent dribbler”, I don’t even think that’s true. That leaves us with hard working, and tbh that just makes me
RVN was very good with the ball at his feet. He was good in tight spaces and dribbling out of them, he could play with his back to the goal, he had good speed and and strength.
People remember him most as a box player because that’s where he did most of his work but that’s because that’s where he needed to be to score goals. But when he felt like he needed to drop deep - he did. He contributed a lot to United’s build up play because of how well he could hold up the ball and play with his back to the goal.
It’s just too simplistic to call RVN a poacher when his game was more well rounded than that.
I edited my post above as well just to reinforce the point about how good he is.
You can’t name the top 15 number 9’s of the last 30 or so years and leave out a man with a goalscoring record like RVN.
lol to be fair if I did it again I’d probably include Romario, left him out cause I was a youngin when he was playing for Barça and mostly remember that time because of replays, so it felt a bit cheap to put him in on the basis of a handful of World Cup games and a shit spell for Valencia, but that one season for Barça probably merits him a spot on the list if we’re honest, even if I didn’t watch him for PSV.
Stand by the other omissions. Owen I totally forgot and would probably need to place on the list or at least consider, which 2 should I take off for Owen and Romario?
edit: would love to include Wright but I think even he would concede that Kane at his peak > Wright
With that in mind you can’t keep out Aguero or Kane either? Although Kane is still young, and we still need to see how his career will progress further to include him, he already has three seasons where he hit 25 goals or more. Aguero 180 goals in 261 PL games.
I agree with you that van Nistelrooij was more than a poacher. But moreso with PSV than United.
Nahh, Batistuta is not making it for the very same reasons as van Nistelrooy. Kane is a better version of a pure goalscorer than them both at his peak (16-18).
Kane’s peak, like others on the list, is quite short (2 seasons) but is brutal. Batistuta and van Nistelrooy are more longevity picks, but neither reached that level. Kane is actually probably the one you could make the best case for moving way up the list, but thanks to his peak being so short and him being a mouth breathing cunt I felt good enough leaving him down there.
edit: think also that penalties are a key calculation here. Ie Torres best (2007-08: 24 in 33 or 33 in 46) I remember as far more dominant than RVN at his best, and with retrospect I’m right, cause those numbers are without penalties whereas RVN’s best (23 in 32, or 36 in 49) are penalty inflated.
The thing is 16-18 are vastly better than anything else he’s done. And he’s been in clear decline since 2017-18 season, something that’s weirdly still not talked about, his npG output since then really isn’t that special. I think he’s likely to be a bust for whoever signs him on big money.
Weah not prolific enough for me and would you call him an out and out CF? I think of him more as a part of a 2 CF attack, which leaves him out of the discussion for the same reason as Raúl (Raúl is a really hard one, tbh, is pretty close to a pure 9 for much of his career–but it’s just easier to leave him out haha)/Del Piero/Baggio.
Shearer now that I’ve looked at his stats probably should be on, not sure why I seem to associate him with an earlier time when I wasn’t really into the PL (pre-96), I guess because Blackburn was before that, or maybe I just don’t have such fond memories of him because he’s exactly the kind of bald English fucker that I’d be least likely to want to emulate/identify with as an adolescent
Yeah, tbf, he and Romario have got to go on, Owen can get fucked though. Probably would remove Drogba and Falcao though those two were complete beasts in their prime, however short it was.
I’m not really initiated in the advanced stats. I do think guys at one point just need another challenge them invigorate themselves. Spurs as a team also slipped. At this point I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt.
It’s a great goal but it’s more exception to the rule. He had great close control, first touch, movement, finishing and technique. But I don’t remember him scoring 30 yard skyrockets like Batistuta, Fowler, Henry, Shearer, Kane could do this at times. It’s just most of his goals he received the ball in the box on the shoulder of the last defender, as we can see by viewing all of his goals here:
You could argue it doesn’t matter, goal contribution is all that counts, but then again his assist count is low.
Also you state you can’t ‘leave out a man with a goalscoring record like RVN.’ I don’t like Kane but Kane’s best 3 PL years are more prolific than RVN’s, Aguero if we ignore injuries is much more prolific per minute.
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