22 January 2024 , 12:54
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Jamie Carragher raised more than a few eyebrows this weekend, when he anointed Diogo Jota as Liverpool ’s best finisher of the Premier League era.
The Portuguese was at his clinical best on the south coast, as his brace helped Jurgen Klopp ’s side to an impressive 4-0 win over Bournemouth. His two finishes were trademark Jota, firing low into the corner at the first sign of a chance.
That led Carragher to suggest he is right up there with some of the Kop greats: "I think of some of the strikers I've played alongside: Michael Owen, Luis Suarez, Fernando Torres, Robbie Fowler. I think he [Jota] is the best finisher.
"Robbie (Fowler) maybe [could be ahead of him] in terms of pure finishing, hard and low, into the corner. But [his two goals against Bournemouth are] typical Jota. When he gets the chance he is so clinical."
It’s a bold shout from Carragher, but it got us thinking…who is the best finisher of the Premier League era? We asked the Mirror Football team for their nominations.
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Simon Bird
I first saw Alan Shearer striking a ball at goal close up when he was 15. It sounded different from the rest of us, a more solid, true thwack, powerful and accurate. Just like when you first hear a pro golfer cracking a ball.
In the 20 years after those junior games, Shearer proved himself the Premier League’s greatest ever finisher. Goals with both feet, power headers, poacher’s instinct and some spectacular long rangers. My favourites are the 30 yard dipping volley against Everton in 2002, and his long range rocket against Chelsea when he out muscled Marcel Desailly, turned and unleashed.
Nobody has scored more Premier League goals than Newcastle legend Alan Shearer (Shaun Botterill/Allsport/Getty Images)Shearer could finish from anywhere. Check out his caressed volley from a long range Rob Lee pass against Villa in November 2001, the day his lad was team mascot. That never got the credit it deserved. 49 of his record 206 goal haul for the Toon were headers. He scored 56 of his 67 penalties. Shearer was ruthless.
David McDonnell
Ruud van Nistelrooy is the best finisher of the Premier League era, without question.
His record of 150 goals from 219 appearances for Manchester United, over five seasons, underlines just how prolific he was for Sir Alex Ferguson's side.
But as a finisher, there was no-one better in the six-yard box than the predatory Dutchman, whose speed of thought and clever movement marked him out as arguably the world's best poacher at his peak.
Ruud van Nistelrooy has a stunning goalscoring record at Man United (Getty Images)Van Nistelrooy was clinical in front of the goal, particularly in one-on-one situations with a goalkeeper. He may have only scored one of his 150 goals for United from outside the 18-yard box, but that attests to just what a lethal finisher he was in and around the goal.
Van Nistelrooy scored from every angle in the penalty area, with his left foot, right foot and head, never giving defenders a moment's rest during games, because of his formidable work-rate and relentlessly instinctive desire to find the back of the net.
Alan Shearer may have plundered more goals, Theirry Henry may have been a more elegant scorer, but in terms of predatory finishing, Van Nistelrooy is undoubtedly the finest of the Premier League era.
Andy Dunn
In the Premier League age, you would struggle to come up with a more clinical finisher than Harry Kane, obviously.
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But the greatest finisher? Depends what you mean by great.
For creative finishing, for ingenious finishing, look no further than Luis Suarez, who cornered the market for unusually brilliant goals.
For nerveless finishing, no-one has been better than Sergio Aguero, THAT title-winner against QPR in 2012 the ultimate example of composure in the box.
Incidentally, Edin Dzeko scored in that match and although his overall record in the Premier League was not eye-catching, he was as good a one-touch finisher as you are likely to see.
The art of headed finishing is not exactly dying out but it feels like its importance is lessening, something that probably rankles with the Premier League’s record scorer. Alan Shearer clearly has a cast-iron case for being the best finisher in the competition’s history but he certainly goes down as the best with his head.
But the finest finisher overall? It’s a crowded field. Wayne Rooney ’s audacity never ceased to amaze, Thierry Henry was a weekly highlights reel and there was no more accomplished midfield finisher than Frank Lampard.
But for his sheer impudence and confidence - and not for his stats - I am going for Robbie Fowler. Quite simply, he was a natural born finisher.
Few could match Robbie Fowler when it came to taking chances in front of goalDarren Wells
As great a finisher as Diogo Jota is, he's not a patch on prime Robbie Fowler.
The Liverpool legend was a ruthless finisher in his heyday. He just knew where the goal was.
But most impressive was the sheer variety of the goals he scored. Left foot, right foot, headers, volleys, overhead kicks, chips, long-range screamers. 'God' really could do it all.
He previously held the record for the quickest Premier League hat-trick - three goals in six minutes against Arsenal! And he left some of the division's best defenders and keepers for dead - see his chip over Peter Schmeichel away at Old Trafford.
The back half of his career was blighted by injuries but had he stayed fit, Fowler's record would be up there with the Premier League's best.
Aside from him, it's obviously hard to overlook Alan Shearer, while Ruud van Nistelrooy was ice cold inside the box. But Fowler at his best was as clinical as they come.
Sam Meade
Erling Haaland is one potent finisher, underlined by the amount of records he broke last season. The amount of different ways he's found the back of the net over the past 18 months has been impressive to watch.
But if we delve through the archives and head back two decades, one Ruud van Nistelrooy is probably the most clinical finisher I've seen in the Premier League. He hit the ground running when he arrived in Manchester, setting records once upon a time for goals in a debut season.
By no means as complete as the likes of Wayne Rooney, yet the Dutchman was phenomenal at what he did best. A best season tally of 44 in 2002/03, he left United whilst he was very much still at the peak of his powers, averaging well over a goal every other game.
He was one of many players to clash with Sir Alex Ferguson and leave as a result, but for the five years he was in England, boy did he know how to find the back of the net.
Tom Victor
With respect to Jamie Carragher, I find it hard to attach a ‘best finisher’ tag to a player who went 31 games without a goal not that long ago.
You need to be looking for a player who consistently overperformed his underlying numbers, and there’s no better example than Sergio Aguero. Even in his final few seasons at Manchester City, when his mobility and sharpness suffered a bit of a dip, he was still scoring far more efficiently than the majority of his rivals.
Aguero’s departure from Premier League starting line-ups coincided with the league’s move towards all-round performers in attack, many of them operating from wider roles. Erling Haaland may yet claim the crown from his predecessor after moving the needle again, but for now the honour belongs to Aguero.
Sure, he wasn’t just a ‘fox in the box’, and had the ability to score from range or create openings for himself out of nothing rather than finishing off others’ moves. Still, being good at some things doesn’t disqualify him from being the best at another.
Thierry Henry became a Premier League legend during his time with Arsenal (PA)Felix Keith
Alan Shearer’s 260 Premier League goals – a fact imprinted on the minds of all football fans – is a pretty powerful argument for the Geordie goal machine. But ‘best’ is an entirely subjective thing, which doesn’t necessarily correlate with most goals.
Shearer was a battering ram of a centre-forward, all straightforward power and grit. There is an argument to be had that the second-highest goalscorer in the Premier League, Harry Kane, is a ‘better’ finisher, but I’m not going to be the one to make it.
Instead, my personal preference is for style over substance and that brings me to Thierry Henry, a man whose legacy is such that, to this day, he has a certain type of finish named after him. See a player on the left-hand side of the penalty area open up his body and calmly side-foot the ball into the far bottom corner, as Gabriel Martinelli did twice on the weekend, and one player immediately springs to mind.
Henry was elegant, stylish and prolific. He scored 175 goals in 258 Premier League games – a rate of 0.68 per match – and was an era-defining talent. He tops the charts for me.
Alan Smith
Thierry Henry may only rank seventh on the Premier League scoring list, with 175, but no other player found the net as distinctively.
He scored a wide variety of beautiful goals - remember the flick, turn and long-range lob against Manchester United, the backheel nutmeg versus Charlton - but his extensive catalogue of low, finesse finishes sets him apart even now.
He did it so fluently at top speed so often. Zooming down the inside left channel, defenders unable to keep up, he would lean back, open his body and use the inside of his right boot to bend the ball into the bottom right corner.
In the early Noughties Henry seemed to trademark that type of goal. Many have replicated it since but no one with such panache.
Ben Husband
Considering he hasn’t been mentioned elsewhere, I’ll give an honourable mention to Andy Cole. He was absolutely prolific and deserves to at least be in the mix when it comes to the most elite finishers.
But there’s only one real answer. It’s Shearer. There is still some element of the Newcastle legend being slightly underrated in the year 2024, now known as much for his punditry as his goalscoring.
But in his prime he was the most inevitable forward I’ve ever seen - other than Steve Bull of course, but that’s a different argument. He scored every type of goal, and was not only a great scorer of goals, but a scorer of great goals.
His record is even more astonishing when you consider that he only played in one title-winning side. Had he ever made that switch to Old Trafford, his tally would have been completely insurmountable.
Kieran King
For me, Heung-min Son is the best finisher of the Premier League era. The 31-year-old has scored 157 times in 393 appearances since moving to Tottenham from Bayer Leverkusen in 2015, averaging almost 20 goals per full season.
That is an incredibly clinical strike rate for someone who was Spurs' second source of goals and didn't play as a central striker up until Harry Kane's move to Bayern Munich in the summer.
And since Kane's departure, Son has scored 12 in 20 in the Premier League and is the joint-third top scorer behind Mohamed Salah and Harry Kane. Son has been deadly in front of goal, which has coincided with Tottenham's impressive form.
Son has consistently outperformed his xG over the last six seasons, further indicating how good of a finisher he is. He's the best finisher I have witnessed since the Premier League began, although Sergio Aguero, Jamie Vardy and Harry Kane are close competitors.
Heung-min Son and Harry Kane have both amassed impressive scoring records for Spurs (PA)Scott Trotter
It's natural to consider the best players in the biggest teams but more simply it's about who you would back to score at any moment.
Strikers starved of opportunities might deserve more credence. There's no denying the confidence you feel when Callum Wilson is through on goal for example.
It's hard to ignore the argument of Erling Haaland in his short time in the Premier League but maybe it's too short. Mo Salah has more than proven his value in recent seasons but this feels like a title for an out-and-out forward.
Few knew their way around the box like Ruud van Nistelrooy, he didn't deal in goals from anywhere else. His emphasis was on finding the right shot from any position and while Haaland's rate of goalscoring may diminish the Dutchman's, 95 goals in 150 matches is nothing to be sniffed at.
However, before Haaland, there was Sergio Aguero. The former Man City striker was a clean bill of health away from being named among the very best. The Argentine marksman had the ability to deliver lethal efficiency and sheer magic and could put teams to the sword single handedly with his 12 Premier League hat tricks. Kevin De Bruyne said Aguero had everything. He wasn't wrong.