Now there’s a leading question and one which has already been the subject of many a debate around the local hostelries of England and, probably, elsewhere.
In order to reach an, (almost), satisfactory conclusion we have to look at the cost involved in bringing them to the club against the number of goals scored.
Obviously as four of these players are in the first season with their clubs we will use only goals scored this season as the yardstick.
So, in reverse order, here are the “best” strikers in the Premier League.
Alexandre Lacazette – Arsenal
Bought from Lyon for £52.7 million the Frenchman has struggled a little this season. In fairness to him, he hasn’t been getting much service and this is the main reason for his measly return of only 8 goals in all competitions.
He will definitely turn out to be a good signing for Arsenal but may have to wait to see if Stubborn Old Man can make a couple of decent signings or, even better, retire and hand over to somebody else.
His current cost per goal is £6.6 million which makes him the worst of the top six strikers.
Álvaro Morata – Chelsea
Bought from Real Madrid for £58 million the Spaniard is going through a lean spell at present. He is another who requires decent service in order to amass the goals and, again, he isn’t seeing much of it at present, which goes a long way to explaining his relatively poor return of only 12 goals for the season.
Antonio Conte will leave at the end of this season so it will be interesting to see if his replacement can get more from Morata.
His current cost per goal is £4.8 million which places him fifth out of the six.
Romelu Lukaku – Manchester United
Bought from Everton for £76.5 million, the Belgian is by far the most expensive of our top six strikers.
He is an instinctive finisher but, when out of sorts, can look big and clumsy.
He also needs to score more goals against United’s direct rivals for the title.
Because of his fee and the 17 goals he has scored he is fourth in our list with a cost per goal of £4.5million.
Sergio Agüero – Manchester City
Bought from Atlético Madrid for £31.5 million, the Argentinian has been one of the Premier League’s most successful strikers ever.
He is Manchester City’s leading all-time goalscorer and, despite not having a regular starting berth this season, has managed to score 19 goals in all competitions.
He is still, however, to convince his manager that he should start every game!
His goalscoring ability puts him third in our list of best strikers for this season with a cost per goal of £1.6 million.
Mohamed Salah – Liverpool
Bought from Roma for a bargain £34 million, the Egyptian has proved to be one of the buys of the decade, up to now anyway.
One of those rare goalscorers who can create and convert the chance himself he is already being watched closely by Real Madrid which should be a worry for Jürgen Klopp, although Salah strikes us as being a loyal kind of character who would stay where he felt happy.
He comes in second best in our list with his 24 goals giving him a cost per goal of £1.4 million.
Harry Kane – Tottenham Hotspur
The best has been saved until last! Bought from nobody, the English striker signed as a schoolboy having been turned down by Arsenal.
He has already scored 28 goals this season and is now Spurs second top goalscorer of all time behind Jimmy Greaves.
Greaves scored 266 goals for the club in all competitions and Kane, at 24 years of age, is well placed to pass that figure providing he stays at the club.
With a cost per goal of £0 he is by far the best striker in the Premier League at present, both in value for money and goals scored.
So that’s our lighthearted look at the strikers at the top six clubs and, before the comments section is flooded with complaints, we appreciate that some of the clubs have more than one striker.
Liverpool, for example, also have Sadio Mané, City have Gabriel Jesus so there are others who could come into the equation. We have just taken those who we consider to be the main striker at the clubs in question.
We also appreciate that the likes of Agüero, who has been at City for many years, is actually far better value over his total time at the club than is reflected by the number of goals scored in just one season, but we have tried to calculate this in as fair a way as possible, whereby all six start from the same position.
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