If you take a peek at the top of the Premier League scoring charts right now, there’s a refreshing essence because the slots are made up by Leicester City duo Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez, not to mention Watford’s Odion Ighalo.
Scoring a combined 25 goals already this term between them, it goes to show that Premier League dreams can come true for lesser players and especially Vardy who was playing non-league football with Stocksbridge Park Steels as recently as 2010.
We’ve seen some great goalscorers down the years in the Premier League, namely Alan Shearer, Matt Le Tissier, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Thierry Henry among others and who’s to say the current leader Vardy can’t hold on to top spot all season long although it’d be a tough ask.
We saw with the likes of Harry Kane who burst onto the scene last term that confidence is everything in front of goal and can lead to some previously unfancied names becoming regular goalscorers at the very highest level.
We always like to have a debate here in the Football Transfer Tavern so today, we’ve devised a list of who the majority of our punters believe to be the five best strikers in the Premier League at the moment.
Do you agree with their choices? If you have a suggestion, let us know in the comments below!
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Click on the image below to reveal who we believe to be the top 5 best strikers in the Premier League. Do you agree?
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Jamie Vardy
The man we referenced at the outset, Jamie Vardy is riding the crest of a wave right now in leading the Premier League’s goalscoring charts, not to mention the fact he quite simply has to be an inclusion in Roy Hodgson’s England squad for Euro 2016, doesn’t he?
Vardy’s previous unfashionable striker tag is diminishing by the gameweek in the Premier League with the Sheffield-born star boasting pace, hunger and a desire to track back in abundance.
Grasping his big Premier League chance with both hands right now, surely its snobbery to ignore the talents Vardy possesses with the former Fleetwood Town striker looking like he’ll be a match for anybody on his day at the moment.
Unsurprisingly, the tabloids have cottoned on to Vardy’s scintillating form in linking him with a £15 million January move to Liverpool although if he keeps scoring at his current rate, perhaps teams likes Manchester United may sit up and take notice also; who knows?
Olivier Giroud
For all his critics out there – and there are a lot of them – Olivier Giroud continues to have that bouncebackability about his game and that’s why we’ve gone with the Arsenal striker in out top five.
Recently, the French international had the best goals to minutes ratio in the Premier League this season, striking 5 goals in just 444 minutes of football and that is a testament to his strength of character.
Having been at rock bottom after getting sent off in Arsenal’s forgettable opening night of Champions League action against Dinamo Zagreb, Giroud has responded well and more recently scored against Bayern Munich and Everton to get Arsenal’s season back on track.
A cliché but having good feet for a big man, how many other 6 ft 4 in strikers are able to score the different kind of goals Giroud does on a relatively regular basis?
Arsenal fans have rpeviously and continue to cry out for a truly world class forward up top and having been used to the likes of Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp in the past, you can see why.
Nevertheless, if Giroud was to leave Arsenal tomorrow, the team would be weaker for it and he seems to be one of those players who is sometimes unfairly used as a scapegoat.
The Frenchman currently boasts a total of 47 strikes in 108 Premier League appearances which isn’t bad going for a player often labelled a ‘donkey’.
Sergio Aguero
Quite clearly the best striker in the Premier League at the moment, what else can be said about Sergio Aguero that hasn’t been said already?
An absolute mercurial talent, the £38 million the Citizens paid Atletico Madrid for his services back in 2011 has been worth every penny with the Argentine currently boasting 84 Premier League strikes in a total of 128 appearances.
The Golden Boot winner last term with 26 strikes to his name, Manchester City just aren’t the same team when they cannot call upon “Kun” up front and the only blight on his career is the fact that at times, he can prove injury prone.
A man for the big occasion, even if you weren’t a City fan, who didn’t get a little excited about that strike against Queens Park Rangers back in 2012 – well, everybody apart from Manchester United supporters!
Harry Kane
Perhaps some believe Harry Kane doesn’t deserve to be in this top five countdown with the Tottenham forward struggling to get going this term but we believe he’s still a class act.
Becoming only the third Spurs player to hit 30 goals in a single season since Martin Chivers back in 1972/73, the England international fell one short of equalling Gary Lineker’s haul of 35 by registering 34 in 2014/15 as a whole.
Having scored huge goals against the likes of Arsenal and Chelsea last term, Kane proved he could score against the Premier League’s meanest defences and on a consistent basis to boot.
What’s more however, Kane was able to score an entire plethora of different goals whether they were headers, poachers’ tap-ins or long rangers.
Getting off the mark against Manchester City (another big club) this time around, it’s taken a little longer for Kane to pick up from where he left off last term but remember, he’s still only 22 and will be a regular source of goals for Spurs for as long as he intends to remain at White Hart Lane.
Diego Costa
Form is temporary, class is permanent?
Like so many other Chelsea players so far this season, Diego Costa hasn’t been his usual confident self out on the pitch, falling short in terms of his performances with the player nowhere to be seen at the top of the goalscoring charts right now.
What Costa has been is every bit the nuisance he has proved himself to be out on the pitch in former years, winding up opposition players while boasting that spiky edge to his game but the goals haven’t been there to accomodate for this so far this term.
That said, having been such a constant source of goals in his time at Atletico Madrid, not to mention in his debut season for the Blues last term, Costa is a class act when at his clinical best.
You can imagine that when Jose Mourinho gets to the bottom of the club’s issues over the next couple of months, he’ll find a way for the Spanish international to scale the heights he set last season in 2014/15.
