Top 100 Forwards in the World:

100: Asamoah Gyan - Ghana - El Ain

I'm not seriously settled on Gyan for the 100 spot. The Ghana captain has become irrelevant in UAE where he is scoring goals for fun and netting about £140,000 a week.

My other wild cards for the spot is Bayern loanee Nils Petersen who from what I've seen, I would already put ahead of someone like Matri who has fallen enough not to be in contention anymore.

A total wild card would be Emmanuel Mayuka who I don't think has even started for Southampton yet (totally different Lambert does fine there) and it would more or less only be based on the Guardian experts amazingly including him in their overall top 100. That's a joke almost no matter what but he might just be a good option in my little Forward's top 100 here. He scored many goals in Switzerland and looks like a very pacy threat.

Of the most prolific EPL strikers not making it, I think I like Shane Long the best, so just outside my top 100 he is ahead of players like Holt, Fletcher and Kone, but all have decent cases for one of the lower spots.

Then finally there is enigmatic notoriously up and down Zlatan-wannabee Marko Arnautović who despite all his talent isn't anywhere near contending on the insanely deep attacking-mid/winger category but who the more I think about it maybe has a decent case over some of the lower ranks on the striker list. If his form doesn't seriously plummet I could see him making the end of the season list.

99: Léo Baptistão - Brazil - Rayo Vallecano
98: Luiz Adriano - Brazil - Shakhtar Donetsk

Léo is already starting to get his fair share of Michu-hype with his difference-making attacking performances for Rayo. He shows clear talent both creating for himself and others but is still raw in many ways, making mistakes and a lot of the time Rayo's best work is done elsewhere on the pitch. He's clearly got skills though.
Luiz Adriano infamous for his gtfo-fair-play goal in the Champions League is definitely the more polished striker of the two with his pace and movement but also not that close to being a main-guy on the deep Shakhtar team, who's attacking midfielders do most of the damage and also have striker options close to the level of Adriano on the bench. I do think he is good enough to be a good striker on a lot of teams though.

fletcher isn't in your top 100? haven't thought about that depth but he doesn't fit in with the other guys you mentioned at all imo.

i look forward to seeing the list bjorn

Top 100 Forwards:

97: Salomón Rondón - Colombia - Rubin Kazan
96: Lacina Traore - Côte d'Ivoire - Anzhi
95: Roque Santa Cruz - Paraguay - Malaga
94: Lima - Brazil- Benfica
93: Hugo Almeida - Portugal - Besiktas
92: Aritz Aduriz - Spain - Athletic Bilbao

Traore is HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE with all the positives and negatives that comes with that. He is the biggest striker on the list. He is also doing well with Eto'o in Russia where Anzhi are leading things. This might be too low but I wasn't THAT impressed with him, and Anzhi in general, in the Europa League but he moves well for his size, does some intelligent link up play and just the fact that he scores the way he continues to do cold be a particular good sign for someone of his (giant) type who a lot of the time just aren't threatening enough on their own.

Rondon was getting better and better at Malaga putting more of all his talent (strength+pace) together than ever before, but actually there is no doubt veteran Santa Cruz his replacement at Malaga is outperforming him and still when his fragile health allow him, looks like a very good, very complete striker. I'm sure if he still had a job Mark Hughes would still sign him.

Aduriz is having a good season individually at Bilbao but still a big downgrade from forced-onto the bench Llorente.

Lima wasn't really on my radar at Braga where he was very successful. I'm not sure how good he really is, so there is some guessing here, who he is better than and who he probably isn't, but he can look crafty-dangerous operating in and around a striker.

91: Adam Szalai - Hungary - Mainz
90: Wellington Nem - Brazil - Fluminense
89: Éder - Portugal – Braga
88: Hélder Postiga - Portugal - Zaragoza

I haven't seen a lot of Mainz this season and my view of Szalai previously was of someone who still had to improve a lot. Someone pretty clumsy in movements and technique. However by all accounts he is now having a great season and the former Real Madrid-B player is now getting linked with all sorts of things, not least including Dortmund as a possible Lewandowski alternative. That's almost a glowing recommendation by itself. They usually know what they're doing so I'm choosing to believe that he has put those physical tools of his together, improved technically, still plays intelligent and that he has become a good more complete striker than just a link-up man maybe better with his head than feet.

Wellington Nem is possibly more of an attacking mid-winger type which is a really tough rank to crack with about 100 players there making the overall 300 list. He is very small, very quick and looks to have all kinds of flashy tricks in his bag. He was newcomer of the year in 2011 in Brazil, I believe still making various team's of the season and also starting contend for the national team. All in all though still a little bit too new and unknown for me to rank him very well.

Eder just seems very talented and has apparently been getting better and better. It makes sense for now to have him behind the ever reliable (even if never truly great) skilled and intelligent penalty area specialist Postiga.

Coming up, the first big names you could say, falling drastically from their rankings the last time!

The second number is their previous "Forward rank" not overall 300 rank.

87: 62 Loic Remy - France – Marseille/QPR
86: 67 Daniel Sturridge - England - Chelsea/Liverpool
85: 32 Giuseppe Rossi - Italy - Villarreal/Fiorentina
84: 34 Alexandre Pato - Brazil - Milan/Corinthians

Kind of weird ordering these but definitely four forwards all with the talent for bigger and better things, with Pato and Rossi of course already having been there and done that, at least to, let's say a top 20 strikers in the world degree at their very best of times, but both also very unfortunate with injuries having barely played recently and there is always uncertainty what their future level will be.

I doubt Remy or Sturridge will ever get as good as Pato and Rossi were but certainly with changes of scenery things must be looking up for them and around the next installment they should have done enough to pass strikers like injured Rossi and Pato. For the moment though they still haven't shown enough recently where they've both struggled.

Remy is in the toughest situation with a club struggling, either to defend or to score depending on the day/tactics and even when he was at his best the last time I still thought his play as a striker was something of a work in progress. I'm not sure if I still wouldn't like more as a right-forward with the goal now in England being Walcott-like productive from there. He has what it takes.

Sturridge even with things that have annoyed me about him in the past, like poor tactical play, is just too talented not to take advantage of playing with Suarez. Goals will come.

Almost done for today though!

I'll start early tomorrow with the goal being serious progress, maybe even finishing the strikers.

83: André-Pierre Gignac - France - Marseille
82: Paolo Guerrero - Peru - Corinthians
81: 52 Giampaolo Pazzini - Italy -Milan
80: Jermain Defoe - England - Tottenham

Good to have Gignac somewhat back though he has to prove himself (again) over a full season. We'll see if he makes it. I haven't seen a lot of Marseille recently so I can't be sure if he is really the same as when he first broke through (will look/compare at his past and present numbers again to see if there is anything) and looked so beastly that I got carried away and compared him to a young Bobo Vieri. He was strong and could really drive both himself and the ball into where it really counts. He won back his spot at Marseille, not least from Remy, so I guess this ranking makes sense even if I'm a little concerned that it's too generous.

Guerrero is someone I could always excuse myself from ranking in the past based on his various failings in the Bundesliga. There are still so many players that he just seems way better than, at least when he plays in South America, that you almost still can't put him ahead of with his up and down history in Germany still fresh in memory.

I still believe in Pazzini as a striker and he still produces for Milan in his few chances but the coach doesn't really believe that he fits in and both Pazzini and the club would be well advised work out a transfer. Fast and intelligent mover with just the needed technique to thrive in the final third. Finishing and 1-touch stuff. He won't get better but he could still be a productive goal-getter somewhere.

Defoe could have been a similar story but with the more suited and much more talented number 1 striker struggling he grabbed his chance and produced. AVB deserves some credit too I think, generally playing to everyone's strengths on the team and not having Defoe try to be Adebayor or something like that.
Defoe still has quickness, good touches, that good (and bad) eye for goal and not least that decisive kicking technique of his that's earned him so many fine goals, inside or just outside the box.

Lovely

I'm a bit Gignac hater,but he benefited a lot from Remy's injury

props to him tho, i never expected him to come back to his 09 standards

nice reads as always btw

79: Fabio Quagliarella - Italy - Juventus
78: Diego Costa - Brazil - Atletico Madrid
77: 50 Landon Donovan - USA - LA Galaxy
76: 53 Kevin Gameiro - France - PSG
75: Romelu Lukaku - Belgium - Chelsea/WBA
74: Bafétimbi Gomis - France - Lyon

Let's make some progress.

Quagliarella still goes from great lows to great heights with his various in-game actions to an amazing degree, but at least he is someone capable of the occasional decisive magic and being one of two strikers in a 3-5-2 his off-the ball game has looked very good throughout this season moving with exemplary coordination with his partner and midfielders. Complementing the players around him. Creating chances. It was definitely something that was key winning a tough Champions League group.

Diego Costa has quietly made the 300 list before. That was when he was looking beastly at various points whenever filling in way back during the Forlan-Aguero era for Atletico. After that he had some problems but was very good in a loan-spell last season playing with Michu at Rayo.

This season the plan for him was being Falcao's backup but he's played so well that Simeone relatively quickly started playing them both together instead.

On top of being a good goalscorer Costa is very physical, hard working and aggressive.

Donovan I don't really know what to do with. I've seen him so little for so long that maybe I shouldn't even try to rank him but I also assume he still has his pace to go with his other talents, so just removing feels a little bit too inaccurate.

When Kevin Gameiro is really good it's so good he can resemble an early David Villa being a pacy scoring threat mostly from the left side of things.
However with the stars PSG has invested in since his arrival, chances to show what he can do are rare.

Lukaku really surprised me how bad he looked during his first chances at Chelsea. He looked nowhere near ready showing slow clumsy movement and touches.
Then this season for WBA he surprised me again looking way better "already". Far more polished and that combined with his obvious physical tools meant almost instant damage whenever he was inserted into games.
In fact I'm pretty sure being there on loan, not part of the club's future etc, meant he had to be extremely good to escape merely being used as a super-sub. And that he was.

Granted it's one thing beasting for WBA with their style of play obviously suiting him well and another trying to complement the likes of Mata at Chelsea, it's still a very real possibility that he is still not quite ready for that, but I do believe he has improved.

Not a big Gomis fan who can be a very frustrating player with all his inconsistencies but there is too much talent to keep him out when it comes together for him like it has this season so far.

Top 100 Forwards continues:

73: 63 Clint Dempsey - USA - Tottenham
72: 44 Danny - Portugal - Zenit
71: Burak Yilmaz - Turkey - Galatasaray
70: 45 Diego Forlan - Uruguay - Internacional
69: Ruben Castro - Spain - Betis
68: 40 Lukas Podolski - Germany -Arsenal

Quite a few here who are also ranked on the attacking mids/winger list.

Dunno if Dempsey and Defoe has had the greatest chemistry. Dempsey doing work around Adebayor has more potential but unfortunately Ade has had a a bad first half of the season and now Defoe and Adebayor playing together has also become a possibility affecting Dempsey's chances of success.

Danny has been the key attacking player for Zenit's recent triumphs in Russia but has only just recently come back after serious injury. He hasn't looked as sharp as when he was at his best. Losing some pace will always be a huge problem but with great technique and seeing openings in the final third maybe this is one player who will overcome it to some extent.

Burak Yilmaz playing in Turkey I obviously don't see a lot but he's been on a goalscoring tear for some time now and this is my "guess" of where he ranks.

Diego Forlan has made little impact so far in Brazil and mostly been injured I think. Not sure if he has one final spell of great form in him or his downfall will continue. At his best brilliant both with his feet and brain.

Time to (finally) reward a very consistent attacker in Spain in Ruben Castro. Not quite a Soldado-like expert goalscorer but with good skills he is capable of similar things with some added versatility in movements and play. Still has pace.

Pretty happy to see Lukaku at a decent ranking.

I agree he looked clumsy/bad in the brief spells he got on the pitch last year. But it was a really tough year for him. He'd get thrown on in games in higher pressure situations where Chelsea are chasing a result, as opposed to matches where the game is won. Plus rarely in his natural position. Also he is still only 19.

No offence to West Brom but I wouldn't mind seeing him loaned out again next year abroad. In a team who are maybe playing Europa League or have more to play for and with more technical players around him.

surprised arnautovic didnt make the list
he is obv still a huge headcase but too much ability to not make the list imo(also i would call him a cristiano wannabe instead of zlatan wannabe)

His attitude has been a lot better this season I think (except for his stupid 2nd yellow this weekend I guess).

Hmm I'll have quite few hours to do this coming up, so finishing the forwards, or almost finishing depending on the amount of commentary I do as I move down the list, would be really nice.

67: 55 Jonas - Brazil - Valencia
66: 65 Nikica Jelavic - Croatia - Everton
65: 36 Raul - Spain - Al Sadd
64: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang - Gabon - Saint-Étienne
63: Oribe Peralta - Mexico - Santos Laguna
62: 69 Fred - Brazil - Fluminense
61: Iago Aspas - Spain - Celta Vigo
60: 51 Oscar Cardozo - Paraguay - Benfica

I still like the sneaky and pretty skilled play of Jonas in the final third, but goals are still not seriously coming for him in La Liga, which was also the reservation the last time. He does do nice work behind and around Soldado though.

If anything I would have expected Jelavic to rise in the ranks, instead he just about stays put (but falls quite a bit in the 300) as he is in the middle of a horrific slump of form and overall has been below what he showed last season.

What to do with Raul in Qatar? think a slumping Jelavic somehow saved him from dropping further. There is just no way a classy Raul isn't better than him and his current state still. However he is my only case of manipulation on the overall 300 list where I just removed him completely from a 230s place, cause what's the point really?

Outside of Ibrahimovic, Aubameyang is the best performing striker in France this season. His pace can be devastating. The rest of what he can or can't do (he has less than 0.5 successful dribbles per game the last two seasons) will determine how good he really is. From what I've seen (not enough) I do still have some reservations about his overall technique.

Oribe Peralta is good enough to challenge Chicharito on the Mexican team and I thought he was a player at a high level (around here among the strikers!) when I watched him at the Olympics. Intelligent striker who moves great and has good skills.

Cardozo was caught in a bit of no-man's land when it wasn't clear if his future was at Benfica or elsewhere but he's been back to scoring goals ever since. Moves well and has good technique for someone with his size and strength and that left-leg of his with kicking -technique and sheer power is just very bad news for the opposition when unleashed in the box.

Iago Aspes was previously a decent attacking midfielder but has really come along when he was asked to lead the attack at Celta Vigo. He scored at will securing promotion last season and he has shown a high enough level in the best division this season to have many clubs around Europe interested in him. Fast and very skillful both in small and more open spaces.

Fred has a remarkable knack for goals, and just what to do, in the box but otherwise he is pretty limited. Topscorer in Brazil.

59: Vedad Ibisevic - Bosnia and Herzegovina - Stuttgart
58: 56 Alexandr Kerzhakov - Russia - Zenit
57: Stefan Kießling - Germany - Leverkusen
56: 38 Danny Welbeck - England - Manchester United
55: 61 Seydou Doumbia - Côte d'Ivoire - CSKA Moscow
54: 46 Papiss Cisse - Senegal - Newcastle

Challenging order here.

Ibisevic should probably have seen time on the list previously. Very good goalscorer and great operator in and around the penalty area.

All in all with his great season I think that Kießling should be above him. He is scoring goals which obviously is a fantastic addition to all his great teamwork. Very physically capable with underrated dynamism with and without the ball. Also a force in the air.

Kerzhakov is an even more fantastic team-worker but maybe hasn't been quite at his very best and then he lacks some decisiveness in the form of pace, skill and just scoring goals I guess. If you compare him to the people around him here.

The others behind him have a case against Welbeck but his pace and body control puts him just ahead. I also think his ballcontrol is probably better than at least the Russian and Kießling. He has very tough competition for striker-minutes at his club and that can't help hurting him a little bit when he doesn't play more than he does atm (hence the drop), but when you think about it, tactically, physically and even if not what you can call great, technique-wise as well, this is a (pretty) complete forward who will outperform many.

Doumbia has been injured recently and is only just coming back. He is currently part of CSKA's friendlies in Spain gearing up for the next part of the Russian season. He was the most dangerous scoring threat there last season, not least thanks to difference-making pace. He was really coming into his own as a goalscoring force and would probably have been higher had injury not struck. It will be interesting how quickly he can return to form.

Cisse could do well to at least add a little bit more than "just" scoring goals, and that's why even in the middle of some godly form (and fortune) of his last season I still had then teammate Demba Ba securely ahead of him, but he is a very athletic striker with the needed goalscoring skills to go along, making him the serious threat that he is.

i havent seen that much of burak either but i would certainly put him higher than ibisevic who is basically just a decent poacher(a slightly worse version of cisse) while burak is a physical animal who offers the team more than just goals

Yeah you may very well be right.

I guess I chose a lot of caution when ranking the Turk until I'm more sure of something.

Hopefully Gala play him and Drogba at the same time. Assuming Drogba is in shape.

Kießling is better than Welbeck imo.

53: 42 Fernando Torres - Spain -Chelsea
52: 23 Lisandro Lopez - Argentina - Lyon
51: Theo Walcott - England - Arsenal
50: Sebastian Giovinco - Italy - Juventus

I tried not to level myself when ranking Walcott and have it be his work as a centre-forward "counting" here where a lot of people are better. This is about him as forward, not least from out wide, where lately he's been better than ever.

Both him and Giovinco are also ranked in the attacking midfielders/winger list which I'll do later.

Before this season you couldn't really call Giovinco a forward (you could with Walcott) he was either a winger or attacking midfielder, but playing as a forward in the Juventus 3-5-2 he's been getting better and better with his movements. He is very quick, though obv not as deadly-fast as Walcott, but has more to offer with his technique and intelligence. I will say though, that when comparing the two, as a forward, Walcott just seeming that more dangerous, his pace getting him into so many great positions for goals or rather simple assists, definitely gives him a case over Giovinco among the forwards here.
It's really close and I keep changing my mind. For now though I guess you can say I just chose to go with the attacking mid-play if you will, of Giovinco, those ingredients inserted into his forward play both central and wide with enough skill and intelligence to even flirt with playmaking territory and that added with recent improving know-how to be a striker, not least better central than what Walcott, outside his own head at least, has done, puts him just ahead.

With Torres the combination of losing whatever amount of pace compared to his best days (and any loss can mean doom for his type), and I think just being less active, and that can both be physical and mental, in his in game actions, not least off-the ball throughout a game, means he is a lot worse than he used to be (ldo), a picture made worse by both his price tag, his shadow and strikers for not least the competing Manchester clubs just being so much better.

If we go back to Liverpool and 2009/10 he averaged 3.7 shots per game, 1.4 dribbles per game and was fouled 2.2 per game.

11/12 for Chelsea it's 2.1 shots per game, 1.1 dribbles and fouled 1.1 per game.

And so far this season: 2.2 shots, 1.2 dribbles and fouled 1.3 per game.

Now obviously you can just look at the significant loss of goals. He scored 18 in 20 league starts for Liverpool that season but there will be many examples of players who's various numbers, like those posted here, remain more or less the same (if the role is similar) but naturally with up and down periods of goals anyway, there are many factors, but with Torres I just see so many times where he is not part of something I expect. Some run he didn't make. Some move. Lack of sprints. The skill is still there, the activity is not. I also THINK that I notice after a lot of effort, sprints, pressing or whatever that for an unusual amount of time his level can just deteriorate. That's what happens with a tired player. Nothing unusual there and I guess my point, or guess if you will, is that it's just not losing pace that has hurt Torres, made him less threatening, which all numbers indicate, but also that Torres the last few years is just a lot less physically capable in all areas than what he used to be (too tired or too weak too often) and of course that hurts his level of play substantially.

Lopez now looks to stay at Lyon I guess, unless new offers come forward, so it will be interesting if he'll become more of a key player there again or if his slipping is even more serious than his drop here would indicate. He has had injury troubles in recent times of course and is getting up there in age as well. He is certainly not getting better but I have to say I still really like him whenever I see him.

Torres at 53.

No. I would love it if he was even close to 530.

Yeah I agree with some leniency when players have a bad half or maybe even full season. For Torres it has been like two years since he has looked good so it's time to revise your view on him. It's not just about goal output though...you can qualitatively see such a change in the case of Torres that it should be easy to dump him down or off the list. His burst of pace and quickness is just not the same anymore. While I think it is possible that he could regain some confidence (but not to where he used to be), I don't see him reversing some of the more fundamental attributes that have deteriorated.

I would say his ranking is fair. The problem for Chelsea is that their number 1 striker is ranked at only 53 of forwards. Compare that to their main rivals whose strikers (Aguero and RVP) will almost certainly feature in the top 10.

He's no longer at a level good enough to play for Chelsea. That in itself accentuates his decline and makes him stand out as a weak performer.

There isn't really much he can do at this point. He can't / hasn't adapted his game to suit a team like Chelsea.

When you consider the home match against Juventus as an example. He was basically playing as a lone striker against three Centre backs. The post match analysis was that "Chelsea were playing with ten man". The reality is he was pressing, trying to make runs in between but at times he was missing obvious runs or just not where he should have been. I think the assessment of a "tired" performer is a good one.

Yet, hes still making Spanish national squads.