Erling Haaland, Mohamed Salah and the best Premier League strikers ever - ranked

Owen's career is often remembered as for what might have been had it not been for his hamstring injuries and he managed to alienate fans of all the clubs he played for. But no one should forget what an exciting player he was when he burst onto the scene, scoring on his debut for Liverpool at Wimbledon while still 17 and then scoring 18 goals in the season when he turned 18 plus 12 assists.

Owen struck 118 times in his seven full seasons at Anfield and in 2001 became the first English player in 21 years to win the Ballon d'Or after firing Liverpool to a cup treble. He remains the last Englishman to have won the game's most prestigious individual prize. His career never really recovered from leaving his boyhood club to move to Real Madrid and he never got the return to Liverpool he craved.

But when he was fit, he continued to score with impressive consistency for Newcastle and Manchester United, where he picked up two Premier League titles and netted a thrilling winning strike in a 4-3 win over City. He kept going despite the toil of all his hamstring injuries until 2013, bowing out aged 33 with 150 Premier League goals to his name.

'Le God' was not as prolific as the modern day strikers, but his influence on the Premier League in its infant stage was utterly astounding. Put simply, he guided United to the title in every full season he played, the Red Devils missing out in 1994-95 when he was suspended in January for his infamous 'kung fu' kick on a Crystal Palace fan.
He joined United four months into the league's inaugural season, when United had made a pitiful start to the campaign of four points from four games which has only just been matched by Ruben Amorim's crop of misfits. His nine goals and 11 assists fired United to a first title in 26 years and he followed it up by inspiring them to a league and cup double, with 18 goals and 13 assists. We'll never know how prolific he could have been in the 1994-95 season as he was on 12 goals when he was hit with his long ban. 

He returned in irresistible fashion, scoring on his comeback against Liverpool and helping United reclaim the title with 25 goal contributions. His six goals in as many games between March and April were worth 11 points, none more valuable than his winner in the title showdown away to Newcastle. His retirement one year later after captaining United to another title came as a massive shock but he ensured he bowed out at the very top of his game. 

"He gets the ball, he scores a goal, Andy, Andy Cole." No one could argue with the words to the chant dedicated to one of the deadliest strikers the league has ever known. Cole made his Premier League debut 32 years ago but he still remains in the top five scorers of all time, only being knocked down from fourth to fifth by Mohamed Salah on Sunday.

In his very first season in the top flight after firing Newcastle to promotion, he scored 34 goals in one season, a record which stood along with Alan Shearer's as the most strikes in a season for 29 years until Erling Haaland broke it. Cole's feats made him the most expensive English player when he switched to Manchester United in 1995 and he overcame some difficulties to become Alex Ferguson's most reliable hitman. His goals helped the Red Devils win five titles, including the decisive strike to clinch the crown in 1999 - the first step of the historic treble. 

Cole was not without his critics, among them England coach Glenn Hoddle who declared, somewhat unfairly, "I don't think he's international class, he needs five chances to score one." Cole had the last laugh, scoring regularly for Blackburn Rovers, Manchester City and Fulham to retire as the league's second top scorer, only trailing Alan Shearer at the time.

The deadly Argentine's signing for City from Atletico Madrid in 2011 for £35m was greeted with the usual doubts about his price tag and his suitability to the league but he quickly made a mockery of his critics, scoring twice on his debut against Swansea after coming off the bench. He finished the season with 21 goals, the last proving the most famous in the league's history as it gave City their first title in 44 years, snatching it from Manchester United's grasp. 

It was the first of five crowns he would win with City, becoming the club's all-time top scorer midway through his seventh campaign. He scored 20 goals or more in six of his 10 seasons at the Etihad Stadium and were it not fo injuries he would have got far more. 

A lot has been made of the fact that Pep Guardiola wanted him to contribute more than goals and used him less and less in his last couple of seasons, and yet Aguero still played a crucial role in the 2017-18 'Centurion' triumph and to beating Liverpool by one point in 2018-19, bagging 21 goals in each campaign. He signed off with 184 league goals to his name, with a statue soon erected one year later recreating his iconic, history-making goal against Queen's Park Rangers.

'The White Pele' may not have been the most politically correct of nicknames for Rooney but it was also apt as he bore many similarities with the legendary Brazilian, taking English football by storm with his scorching strike for Everton against Arsenal when he was just 16 years old. 

Rooney then went on to form part of an all-conquering United side, counting on incredible strike partners such as Ruud van Nistelrooy, Carlos Tevez, Dimitar Berbatov and Cristiano Ronaldo. He was the ever-present force though, helping United win five Premier League titles plus a Champions League and going on to become the club's all-time top scorer.

Rooney remains the third top scorer in Premier League history and scored some of the most memorable goals in the competition too, such as his volley against Newcastle and his bicycle kick against City. Why is he all the way down in sixth then, you might ask? The inconvenient truth is that for all his magic, Rooney only had two truly prolific seasons, breaking the 20-goal barrier just twice. He conquered his records thanks to his longevity, playing 16 seasons in the top flight, and strangely never won the Golden Boot.

Whichever way you look at Erling Haaland's goal statistics, they defy logic and belief. He scored 36 goals in his very first season in the Premier League, toppling Shearer and Cole's previous record tallies which had stood for almost three decades. He has averaged a goal for every home game he has played in the Premier League. In little more than three seasons he has scored eight hat-tricks.

He does not just break records, he obliterates them. He took 48 games to score 50 league goals, 17 fewer than previous record holder Cole. He is the joint-top scorer in the Manchester derby in Premier League history along with Aguero and Rooney, despite only playing in seven matches.

With 90 goals in 101 games, his goals-per game ratio stands at 0.89. Thierry Henry, second on the list, had a rate of 0.68. Haaland's next milestone is to become the 35th player to score 100 Premier League goals and it will be a massive shock if he does not beat Shearer's mark of 121 games and become the fastest player to reach that milestone. Having signed a 10-year contract with City in January, it is also difficult to see how Haaland does not come for Shearer's crown as the league's all-time top scorer. 

Shearer was the Premier League's first poster-boy courtesy of winning three successive Golden Boots between 1993-94 and 1995-96 and firing Blackburn Rovers to the title in 1995. He looked destined to join Manchester United in 1996 but instead picked his hometown club Newcastle, joining for an English record £15 million. 

Shearer won no trophies on Tyneside but he kept on finding the net on a consistent level, becoming Newcastle's all-time top scorer and plundering a record Premier League 260 goals. He remains immensely proud of his achievement and got anxious when Harry Kane began to close in on him. He breathed a huge sigh of relief when Kane left Tottenham to join Bayern Munich, after joking that he would become a pilot just in order to fly the striker to Germany and ensure he would never get close to his beloved record.

Haaland, however, looks destined to come for his crown eventually.

Liverpool's Egyptian King wasn't considered a particularly prolific player when he arrived at Anfield from Roma in 2017 but it turned out he was just about to hit his peak and he immediately broke the Premier League's single-season goalscoring record by netting 32 times in just 36 games. 

It was the first of four Golden Boots although firing Liverpool to their first title in 30 years and another one last season were arguably even bigger achievements. His last-gasp penalty against Burnley saw him reach 188 Premier League goals and move past Cole as the fourth top scorer. 

And if he sees out the two-year contract he signed with Liverpool last year, he stands a great chance of overtaking Rooney on 208 and Kane on 213 and making it all the way to second on the list. Salah does far more than just score though: he has 88 league assists to his name and is one of the most complete players the Premier League, if not the world, has ever seen.

Kane was written off as a 'one-season wonder' when he scored 21 times during an epic 2014-15 season, his breakthrough campaign with Tottenham after spending years in the wilderness on loan at Leyton Orient, Millwall, Norwich City and Leicester. Kane never looked back, however, lifting three Premier League Golden Boots and going on to become the league's second top scorer on 213 goals. 

Had he not got itchy feet and moved to Bayern Munich in pursuit of a first major trophy, he might well have knocked Shearer off his perch. Kane's goal feats are all the more impressive given that, unlike the teams of most of the players on this list, Tottenham rarely challenged for the title in this period, experiencing their fair share of disappointing seasons. 

But even when his team-mates were flagging and Tottenham were without a proper coach, Kane kept his head down and kept on scoring.

Thierry Henry only spent eight full seasons in the Premier League but he was the most spectacular player in the division throughout that time. So while others scored more goals, no one did so with as much style and swagger as the Frenchman, who remains the best striker to have played in England's top flight.

A lethal finisher blessed with blistering pace that was as effective as he was elegant, Arsenal's all-time leading goalscorer could tear a team to shreds all on his own. "It was embarrassing for the defenders: he just scored when he wanted," said former Gunners boss Arsene Wenger, who converted his compatriot from a winger into a striker.

Henry was at his peerless best during the historic 2003-04 season, when he scored 30 times for 'The Invincibles', and the French forward remains the only player ever to record 20 goals and 20 assists in the same campaign - the perfect testament to his all-round excellence. He also finished top scorer in the league in half the seasons he played for Arsenal, the only player to win the prize four times until Salah caught up with him last term.