You completely overlooked my point. I'm strictly speaking as a #1 striker. Chelsea should certainly be looking to upgrade. He isn't even close to #1 for Spain anymore.

Won the Golden Boot, so he's obviously their #1.

Btw I think I'll post both the central defenders and the left+right-backs in much fewer parts than this. Then we'll see about the two (very deep) midfielder categories that really make up so much of the overall 300 list.

49: Christian Benteke - Belgium - Aston Villa
48: 39 Mario Balotelli - Italy - Manchester City
47: Pablo Osvaldo - Italy - Roma
46: 49 Mirko Vucinic - Montenegro - Juventus
45: 31 Ezequiel Lavezzi - Argentina - PSG
44: 66 Michu - Spain - Swansea
43: 47 Olivier Giroud - France - Arsenal

It does feel a little bit off having a current Aston Villa player inside anything top 50 here but Benteke is that good I think.

Even if it may not say anything we didn't know already, or something very meaningful about how good he really is, his lead leading 8.4 aerial duels won per game made my jaw drop. Even if the winning percentage itself is not the very best, 8.4 is still the highest I've ever seen. Only mountain-GOAT Peter Crouch has times where he's been even close to that.

Benteke is so strong and a great athlete. He moves well and I think he also does quality work with the ball where his technique holds up well. He is actually among the leaders (top 5) in key passes (leading to shot on goal) among forwards, and some of those ahead of him are helped by their in-direct set-piece responsibilities where Benteke has none as far as I know.

I definitely see a big money move away from Villa sooner rather than later.

Balotelli oh Balotelli. Such a waste. I think you can argue placing him all kinds of places on the list, except maybe much better than this. I do actually think there were some small improvements during the recent times where he's been healthy though obviously not the kind his immense talent deserves.

I definitely didn't think I would have former Argentinian Osvaldo top 50 in something like this a few years ago where he also looked like someone clueless wasting his talent, but he is skilled (control and kicking) and athletic (moving, jumping even fighting defenders) enough to be a very dangerous forward both coming from wide and inside the box. That's pretty good.

Vucinic is basically Berbatov-lite though to be fair he has now added good teamwork to his versatile arsenal. Otherwise I think he could seriously drop since his form and overall effectiveness as a player hasn't been great lately.
He has enough special skill to be decisive in the final third but probably tries to be just that at a little bit too alarming of a rate. Sometimes every action of his, whether touch, dribble or pass is aimed towards the sky and the resulting letdowns too many.

Lavezzi's drop here can simply be explained with the last ranking of forwards being 100 percent based on the overall player rankings. Then I just took all the forwards and ordered them as I had on the 300. Now he'll be ahead overall of some of the strikers he is behind here because of his ranking and qualities as attacking mid/winger which is what he is now doing at PSG anyway, compared to his time at Napoli. I'll comment more on him when I get to him on the attacking mid/winger list.

Man Michu was tough to rank. Both here, in the attacking mid and overall. Hard worker, great mover, strong, pacy and skilled finisher. His modest technique might not make him great in the final third as a more typical good attacking mid but his other qualities still make him an effective one.

Giroud! Sure he's had bad periods but has looked quality at times also (unless you put him up against RVP!) and that combined with the season he had last year, means he still has enough in the bank to be ahead of guys like Benteke, Michu. I also think the lack of deliveries he is getting compared to what I'm sure he is used to has affected his overall success and contributed to some of the down periods.
He has the tools to be effective at Arsenal as well though. His left-foot is really dangerous and he has enough technique, strength and fine movement (good for his size) to also be effective in smaller spaces complementing people outside the area.

No Samaras or Hooper.

List fail.

Osvaldo

Which has a formation that has no strikers.

There are quite a few strikers in the list that are higher than Torres that would contribute much more than he does.

42: 41 Andre Schürrle - Germany - Leverkusen
41: 48 Luis Fabiano - Brazil - Sao Paulo
40: 57 Alvaro Negredo - Spain - Sevilla
39: Jackson Martinez - Colombia - FC Porto
38: 43 Roberto Soldado - Spain - Valencia
37: 30 Antonio Di Natale - Italy - Udinese
36: 27 Hulk - Brazil - Zenit

Schürrle plays as a winger for Leverkusen. Maybe he should score a few more goals to get ranked where he is here on this particular list (behind more scoring teammate Kiessling for starters) and that's where some tricky argument can start. I could still justify Schürrle being better placed than Kiessling and many other strikers on the 300 list (as he will be) based on his rank as a winger, but all in all I really do think he is a more dangerous player than Kiessling. Go figure! Schürrle got so much pace and enough moves to be a 1v1 beast. Even in the dribble-friendly Bundesliga his 3.2 successful dribbles per game with just a 1.6 dispossessed rate to go along with it is very elite, and it's not like he is someone who doesn't strike the ball very well. He does. Football is beginning to see some notorious exceptions but usually a centre-forward will score more than a winger, that's the case at Leverkusen and though I would like for Schürrle to at least make it closer, I think everyone agrees that he has serious number 9 potential, Cristiano Ronaldo he is not.

Alvaro Negredo has all the tools, technical and physical, and I would very much like to see if it's good enough to be very successful at say Spurs.
The inconsistent periods are becoming more of a thing in the past as well and even though it's a long time ago, was he to move to Spurs and sometimes play with another striker, the bad periods where he was inserted into the great Fabiano-Kanoute partnership and being a serious downgrade from either, would still be a little worrying. Well, if you're a worrier that is... But he's played alone on top for a long time now in 4-2-3-1 and born and bred to do just that.

Jackson Martinez is a physical beast and it's tempting to rank him even higher. He's good skills too and even operate on a high level tactically always playing smart with what looks like great teamwork. It's still a little bit early for him though even if I'm quite sure he is excellent.

It's clear that Hulk sucks right now. All the problems after moving to Zenit are well documented, however there is just no way his physical talents alone wouldn't immediately be an upgrade over the more and more fragile nature of Di Natale's on and then off qualities. Granted the periods where Di Natale does something in a game, is still of the highest quality+very productive, and the whole Udinese's team attack is geared towards just those and not much else. But it has its limits I think.

Soldado is quite simply one of the most expert of the expert poachers. He just KNOWS scoring positions and has the skill to take advantage. Di Natale, despite my other criticism, still does a little bit more (creating + expert poaching in his own right) though.

I really don't know. I mean some probably would, but maybe not enough, most I just don't think would be good enough for Chelsea and/or have had various things counting against them in this period not to be ranked better. Injury or just too unproven for the time being.

I did really try to rank Torres as poorly as I could haha.

I would take every EPL player you have mentioned over him without a pause, esp Jelavic and including Defoe.

Top thirty soon!

I haven't watched as much Chelsea in the league this year, the times I paid most attention were there matches v Juve.

In the second half of arse/chels we were all over them. We piled everyone forward for 40+ min leaving Torres alone at half vs Mert for almost an entire half with no cover. He made two chances, but you can't respect a player any less then that and any elite striker with any bit of pace would have finished us on the counter (as Ba almost did).

What are the different lists you are doing Bjorn?

Top 50 left and right-backs
Top 50 central defenders
Top 100+ Midfielders
Top 100 Attacking Midfielders/Wingers


and right now Top 100 Forwards.

I'm pretty sure I'll do defenders and sidebacks in drastically fewer portions. Maybe early parts of the others too. We'll see.

35: 37 Miroslav Klose - Germany - Lazio
34: 20 Klaas Jan Huntelaar - Netherlands - Schalke 04
33: 60 Francesco Totti - Italy - Roma
32: 35 Demba Ba -Senegal - Newcastle/Chelsea
31: 25 Diego Milito - Argentina - Inter
30: 24 Emmanuel Adebayor - Togo - Tottenham

Veteran Klose has probably been playing better football than at least 4 of the other players here but again age + more and more fragile health. reduced physical capability means that he has his limits unfortunately. But always worth complimenting him for his intelligence on and off the ball, superb movement and all kinds imaginable teamwork-things.

Despite recent form, and Huntelaar dropping (maybe too much) because of it, I can't really find a convincing argument putting a goal-machine like the Hunter still in his prime below Klose.

Totti, for the first time in a while, will also be ranked as an attacking midfielder, just like the good old days, and it's possible I should have just kept him there since what he is doing lately is drastically different from most strikers on this list. However for most of the recent years he's been more of a forward than attacking midfielder, he even had prolonged poacher-periods it could be argued, so for now I'm also keeping him with that company.

It started last season I guess under Luis Enrique trying to play possession football. For the first time in a number of years Totti averaged just more than 50 passes per game. This season it's 56. In 09/10 it was 31.

The many more touches and this season's attacking style really highlights what a superb playmaker he still is. He immediately see openings and options that maybe only a handful of other players are also capable of and he can do all the passes and touches to take advantage making it look easy almost every time.

He was becoming way too slow and relatively easy to mark to be a serious scoring threat in and around the area and for many of those periods in recent seasons I really didn't think he made the team that much better.

I also find myself impressed with his activity level in general. That might be the biggest key to this jump. They play much more up tempo than in recent seasons and an obvious worry would be how aging Totti would cope with that. Even with some danger that coach Zeman's style is a somewhat flattering paradise for someone with Totti's divine talent, I can't take away that he is coping just fine by looking (much) better than in quite a few years.

Most notable if you look at numbers as usual is his through-ball where his 1.8 per game is best among the 5 major leagues. Last season he was at 1.6 with only really Messi pushing him at 1.4. Previously I think it's only Fabregas and Ronaldinho who have also been at 1.4 or above.

Milito looks he might be starting to slip just a little bit and he is another one who won't get any better, but he is just holding on for now and of course continues to be a very good striker.

I would suspect this is around Demba Ba's ceiling. Maybe it's too good of a ranking. He is obviously an upgrade over Torres but still to early to say just how good he'll be at Chelsea which is very different than anything he's tried before.

I would expect Adebayor to rebound during the second part of the season and jump places come year end. He is too good not to once he finds consistent fitness. But a bad season so far.

29: 22 David Villa - Spain - Barcelona
28: 17 Didier Drogba - Ivory Coast - Shanghai Shenhua/Galatasaray
27: 45 Antonio Cassano – Italy - Inter
26: 26 Javier Hernandez - Mexico - Manchester United
25: 21 Mario Gomez - Germany - Bayern München
24: 16 Fernando Llorente - Spain - Athletic Bilbao

I don't think there is that much interesting to say about these. They're kind of left overs from the previous list it feels like. Some of them at least.

I will say Cassano for a while now has been fitter than maybe ever, and when I can't hold that against him much negativity goes away and a lot of excellent footballer comes through.

Gomez or Llorente? One has been injured and the other forced to sit on the bench. It's really close between these two but I guess I should stick with my ranking of them from the last time.

Hernandez continues to produce goals at a fantastic rate if you look at minutes played. Defenders just can't mark him.

Drogba has China going against him. Villa injury and not playing much for a while. It's something of a balance act ranking them but glorious pasts full of excellent football and estimates of where their level might be at right now still comes through favorably against those below.

Good job so far. Only the Torres ranking sticks out IMO

Eagerly waiting the next batch.

23: 58 Mario Mandzukic - Croatia - Bayern München
22: Stephan El Shaarawy - Italy - Milan
21: 19 Thomas Müller - Germany - Bayern München
20: 29 Edin Dzeko - Bosnia and Herzegovina - Manchester City

Have to leave for now but will do the top 20 earlier tomorrow then move on to one of the others.

I'll leave with four years of Thomas Müller (with some anti Gomez and pro Mandzukic also thrown in) then comment on the others here also tomorrow.

Thx for following.

Thomas Müller:

End of 2011/12 - Start of 2012/13:

Before the 2012/13 season where Bayern are currently looking excellent, my favorite recent Bayern period was when during the Bundesliga winning 2009/10 season then coach Van Gaal would play a very flexible front four of Olic (whenever Ribery was injured but the Frenchman was also fine), Müller, Robben and Klose. Behind them we had a midfield tandem where Van Bommel and the re-innovated Bastian Schweinsteiger ruled. Mario Gomez? He was mostly on the bench and the overall result was some wonderful fluid football bringing the best out of everyone's characteristics, and of course, they actually won something too.

Reading it again it looks like I already, somewhat touched upon it down below in the 2011/2012 mid-season Müller-comments, but it's now clear that last season just wasn't anything like that. The way Bayern set-up and generally played didn't really bring out the best of everyone, least of all Müller who had his worst season so far acting way too much as Gomez (who certainly did enjoy it apart from when he and Bayern were exposed against Dortmund shoving in their faces exactly what they were lacking) personal rather limited water-carrier.

Both Gomez (who at least least made use of it to bomb away) and Robben did a terrible job of occupying Müller's space and limiting him to the one place on the pitch where he is least effective. You only have to look at this season and what new striker Mandzukic different movements and nothing short of exemplary teamwork compared to Gomez, has done for Müller's game, to realize that in comparison last season's Bayern make-up just wasn't ideal for Müller to keep shining on.

There is plenty of praise and description of the many admirable Müller characteristics in the various yearly installments further down the commenting, but it should also be said that with his quickness, anticipation, freak-strength and stamina he is also all you could ever wish for in an attacking player defensively, someone quite simply made for effective ball-pressure (gegenpressing, counterpressing) providing real value for his team defensively as well. Something absolutely key for team pushing for the very highest level in the current game.

2011/2012 Mid-season:

I'm still a big fan of Müller's qualities. His impressive athletic ability, teamwork, great stamina, quality movement and superior versatility.

He still didn't show any signs of slowing down last season following his great 2009/10 breakthrough. It's now perfectly clear that this is one very durable player, and I think perhaps it is only a healthy Robben, even when constantly cutting inside and all, still inevitably forcing Müller more central, where there is less space for his pace to eat up, and instead increased demand for technical ability, that can at least reduce his effectiveness somewhat.

There is still his great movement though, and in between Gomez occupying space ahead of him central, and Robben dragging defenders with him cutting inside, Müller will still find space to exploit with his runs no matter where it is, and his anticipation for getting to chances, including in the penalty area, is close to phenomenal.

More than great skills with the ball, where most this high up the list will be better, Müller score and create all the goals that he does with a combination of great sprinting (the sheer amount he can perform), outstanding teamwork and some uncanny anticipation.

2010/11:



Müller's amazing breakthrough season continued at the World Cup.

Entering the 2010/11 season for Bayern things haven't been going quite as smoothly so far but personally I'm more convinced of his qualities than ever and weaknesses are getting harder to spot all the time.

I think I'm even seeing new strong points when it comes to Müller. Now rather than almost exclusively complementing players around him (and doing it great) not least through off the ball movement (those relentless sprints!), he now also looks capable of creating with the ball, and not just the piercing runs but through effective passing as well. Assisting goals.

In my mind, the rise of Müller shows no signs of stopping.

2009/10:

Tall 20 year old athletic freak who must be a dream to have on a football team. Müller can play several positions well and combines superb work-rate, attacking and defending, team work and quick movement to make him already one of the best players in the world without the ball. There I said it.

He'll operate effectively anywhere in the final third and with his prolific pace and constant movement and ability to perform one fast sprint after another throughout 90 minutes makes him very difficult to properly mark.

With the ball he is a little more inconsistent (or how scary would he be?). On the wing he definitely has the ability (and agility) to make piercing runs with it at great speed, or if central the ability to perform quick turns once he gets it shielding the ball, but will at times fail to control passes that look rather simple.
My perhaps incorrect theory is that he is often very ambitious with his first touch and that will make him look below par sometimes. No matter what it is though, subpar technique, great ambition or poor decisions, improvements can definitely be made. But make no mistake about it, this is already an excellent player. One who sooner rather than later will have a good case for an even higher ranking.

hernandez/adebayor/huntelaar too high

hernandez is very incomplete and seriously lacking in a lot of areas(holdup play, playing with back to goal, link-up, bring team-mates into play etc etc etc)
he shouldnt make the top 50

adebayor CAN be devastating on his day but is far too inconsistent

huntelaar is way too one-dimensional
hold-up and link-up play is lacking and apart from his poacher goals he is therefore a complete non-factor

when gomez sat on the bench 2009/10 it wasnt because of klose, ivica olic stepped up as our starter for most of the season , especially at the end when it counted (18vs4 goals as well)

and mandzukics ranking is way way too high, hes basically the perfect example that shows that an average striker on a top side will score you 20 goals a season easily. of course i do like his workrate, but hes just way too slow and too bad a finisher to be considered a worldclass striker. has the best headers in the league tho.
olic was a perfect example for this as well.

@cashy: I don't fundamentally disagree with any of that, but I think you might underestimate the value of great poaching.

Well, he's just about the only player in the top 75 that has huge trouble playing as a lone striker and can't play out wide. I'm a fan of Hernandez. Would of snap taken him and 10m or so for RVP. He looks great for United and they're a perfect match.

He would really have a hard time being a good player on most other teams though. He's not good enough to build your team around and would have a lot of trouble in the systems spurs/arsenal/chelsea/every spanish/team plays.

Looking around I'd probably have him around 45-50. I rate him, but he's not better then Schurlle, Di Natale and others. There are players that have carried some not great teams to CL places by themselves 20+ places below him.

But that's one of the problems with lists like these (and yet, what makes the game so great).

Which is more impressive: The ability to drag mediocre sides to CL places singlehandedly, or the ability to operate successfully at the absolute highest level? They're different skills.

Even in a list of forwards, there are still so many different player types that it's difficult to compare. (Maybe I'm misremembering, but I seem to recall someone saying the Italians have like 12 different terms for what we would call "forward" or something like that).

Personally, I think Chicharito might be just a bit too high on the list, but the ability to consistently score goals for one of the top teams in the world shouldn't be underestimated.

Would people have claimed that Van Nistelrooy wasn't an elite striker because he wouldn't have been able to carry a midtable team as effectively as many who would be rated below him?

I agree with you guys re: Hernandez. I have always been a big believer in Hernandez since the run up to the world cup (hadn't seen him at all before that, but was wildly impressed when I saw him and shocked that a crap player like Franco was being favored over him in the national team). That said, he is not one of the top strikers in the world. Being what he actually is, which is closer to where you say, is a great achievement given he came from Mexican obscurity not all that long ago.

My comment was really more targeted towards Huntelaar, who I have also been a strong believer in basically forever. Even in his "bad" times in Madrid and Milan, he was still pretty effective when he got playing time. He was not a good fit for Madrid for sure, and he might not work at a lot of clubs, but he is obviously a top forward because he is incredibly lethal and pretty intelligent, even if not very athletically gifted. Huntelaar definitely adds a little more than strict poaching, as he is a little more adept in his shooting and rangey compared to someone like Soldado who I view as a quintessential poacher (and a good one at that).

Ok I really really need to get started again and finish this tonight. Will argue later! But Valencia would throw Soldado in the garbage bin for someone like Chicharito. So much more athletic. Ok that's exaggeration but I really struggle to see many people in the top 50 who's strengths are so good they should be ahead of the Mexican (despite his shortcomings which I acknowledge or he would be even higher!).

I wouldn't call Mandzukic world class either. It would take one of the more generous definition even if there are many to do so. He is also closer to overall 100 than my overall top 50. But I do really like him hence the ranking. There will be better goalscorers, the big-men can have it tough there, but as long as he at least produces I like how improves a team over many of the direct competitors. Some granted, would likely be ahead of him if they weren't slumping or injured recently.