\n<\/p>\n
Mohamed Salah is off and the rumour mill is spinning now that the need for a Liverpool replacement has been confirmed.<\/p>\n
Bayern Munich\u2019s Michael Olise is the Reds\u2019 top choice of ten options<\/strong>but chances are they will have to set their sights a tad lower<\/strong> than the best left winger in world football.<\/p>\n It\u2019s no mean feat replacing a legendary forward like Salah, as proven by the following list of players drafted in for the 25 best forwards in Premier League history, most of which have paled in comparison to their predecessors.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve ranked the direct(ish) replacements from worst to best after considering a range of factors including the status of the departee and the cost of the successor.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n We\u2019re bending the rules here slightly as Pederson didn\u2019t arrive until the winter transfer window, but worthy of mention as Rovers were linked with Gabriel Batistuta and then Thierry Henry before arriving at Pedersen, who scored one goal in 12 appearances as the replacement for the Premier League\u2019s greatest ever goalscorer.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n A world-record \u00a385m fee spent on Chadli, Erik Lamela, Roberto Soldado, Paulinho, Etienne Capoue, Vlad Chiriches and, admittedly, Christian Eriksen might be the worst transfer business in football history.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Replacing a guy whose love for Manchester United is perhaps more deep-seated than anyone\u2019s having spent all his career as a Red Devil, winning an absurd 13 Premier League titles with them, with a guy whose hatred for the club might just be unmatched is peak post-Sir Alex DNA.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Not a great surprise that a man who hangs a picture of himself on the wall of his family home would think he could fix the firework-throwing Manchester City misfit Balotelli, but in fairness to Brendan Rogers he did try to counterbalance the mercurial but hugely talented Italian with a \u00a34m striker playing football at least two decades after his style was in vogue.<\/p>\n MAILBOX: Mo Salah is no Luis Suarez; the Liverpool fan verdict is in<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n The Welshman was fortunate in that he avoided direct and inevitably damaging comparisons to Kane as Richarlison had arrived the year before to fill that much vaunted spot in football as a Harry Kane backup before taking on the central striker role while Johnson played chiefly on the right wing.<\/p>\n Turns out both Tottenham and Kane needed a divorce to end trophy droughts, and we assume they remain delighted at their respective trajectories since parting ways.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n No one would have been worthy after Drogba literal last kick of a football for Chelsea (in the first spell) was to seal the Champions League trophy from the penalty spot, so they decided not to bother before belatedly coming to terms with the reality of Fernando Torres being wholly unable to fill the void and signing another striker to pale in comparison in January as Demba Ba was drafted in from Newcastle.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The last man to care about Tottenham Hotspur football club departed and a guy who quite clearly couldn\u2019t care less about them is now playing, or rather not really playing, in his stead.<\/p>\n The mind boggles as to how the Tottenham chiefs took a look at Tel on loan last season and decided he was the man to replace Son\u2019s 173 goals and 101 assists in 454 games.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n A footballer defined by a double leg break courtesy of Birmingham\u2019s Martin Taylor which we see through Cesc Fabregas\u2019 fraught and panicked eyes. Who knows, maybe he could have been the new Thierry Henry? We do \u2013 he couldn\u2019t have been.<\/p>\n READ MORE: Eight ludicrous rejected bids as Salah agrees free Liverpool exit after \u00a3150m Saudi offer<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Cole left for Blackburn in January 2002 as the arrival of Ruud van Nistelrooy in the summer saw his game time limited at Old Trafford. Forlan became a figure of fun at United, offering rival fans a blessed opportunity to poke fun at something Red Devils related as he failed to score in any of his first 27 Premier League appearances before achieving cult hero status with a game-winning brace against Liverpool.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Why oh why did he leave? Chelsea haven\u2019t been the same since and Hazard certainly wasn\u2019t. The difference being that Chelsea care about that and Hazard \u2013 God bless him \u2013 evidently couldn\u2019t give two sh*ts.<\/p>\n He got 31 goal contributions in his last Premier League season. Pulisic got a perfectly reasonable 15 in his debut campaign but it went downhill from there.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Hleb had a bit of the Bergkamps about him \u2013 he was easy on the eye \u2013 but often flattered to deceive as part of a squad as a whole that never quite had the X-factor that Bergkamp so often provided in the glory years under Arsene Wenger.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The first summer of Roman Abramovich, when Chelsea supporter eyes were glued to Sky Sports News to learn which star player they had signed in the last hour, was the most perfectly Zola time for Zola to depart. He was too pure for all that money stuff and gave pleasure to fans and neutrals alike that Crespo and Mutu couldn\u2019t hope to replicate and never got close to.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n They tried an opposite thing \u2013 replacing a striker who can barely run but was the Premier League\u2019s greatest ever finisher with a guy who could run with the absolute best of them and finish only occasionally.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Luis Diaz had arrived in January before Mane left and was more of a like-for-like replacement and Gakpo has spent his time at Liverpool as a winger ranging from not\u00a0quite\u00a0good enough to the scapegoat for all things negative at the club.<\/p>\n READ MORE: Liverpool top scorers against Big Six: Szoboszlai one club away from completing the set<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n The blas\u00e9 way we viewed Manchester City\u2019s wonderful collection of forwards in their peak era is exposed very effectively by the majority now (quite reasonably) believing Doku to be doing a good job for the current team. He\u2019s got 17 goals and 32 assists in 120 appearances. Mahrez got 78 goals and 59 assists in 236 games. A criminally underrated footballer.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Fun fact: Lukaku scored more goals (26) in his debut season for United than Rooney managed in any of his last five at the club. Ipso facto, if we ignore the fact Rooney was playing in a deeper role, got many more assists and is the Red Devils\u2019 greatest goalscorer of all time, Lukaku > Rooney.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n A bold move from Sir Alex Ferguson to spend just \u00a320m of the \u00a380m they got from Real Madrid to replace arguably the greatest footballer in the world, and hedging his bets with two for a quarter of the price of one didn\u2019t go brilliantly.<\/p>\n Valencia predictably failed to match Ronaldo\u2019s absurd numbers and was subsequently turned into a very capable right-back, while Obertan made just 27 appearances for United, scoring just one goal and assisting four.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Not quite a direct replacement as Rosicky played a more central role. A footballer Gooners might describe as a \u2018great servant of the club\u2019 without getting close to the heights reached by his gloriously stylish predecessor.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n While the masses panicked as to how Pep Guardiola might replace a guaranteed 20+ goals a season he smiled wistfully and simply didn\u2019t, playing without a centre-forward for most of the 2020\/21 and 2021\/22 seasons, scoring 83 and 99 goals respectively on their way to those titles, enraging Proper Football Men up and down the country.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Perhaps deemed a not insignificant downgrade by many but Van Persie scoring 96 goals at a rate of 0.49 per game and Giroud notching 73 at 0.41 acts as excellent evidence that the French striker never got the credit he deserved on these shores.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Cristiano Ronaldo got 17 goals, Wayne Rooney got 13 and Louis Saha chipped in with eight as United eased to the title in their first season after Van Nistelrooy, before Carlos Tevez joined a year later to create arguably the greatest forward line in Premier League history.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Signing one of the most naturally gifted strikers ever to grace the Premier League for a bargain fee as a replacement for Chelsea-bound Fernando Torres should have this one at least vying for top spot, but we also had to factor in the move for Suarez.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Henrikh Mkhitaryan arrived from United as Sanchez went the other way in January 2018, but Aubameyang arrived in that same winter window to plug the goal gap left behind by the Chilean forward. Only Thierry Henry (0.68 per game) and Ian Wright (0.54) have scored goals at a better rate than Aubameyang (0.53) in the Premier League, with Sanchez (0.49) joint fourth with Robin van Persie.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The loss of Sterling goals was made up and then some by the arrival of Erling Haaland, though not as a like for like replacement, as Guardiola made do with Julian Alvarez, Jack Grealish, Phil Foden, Riyad Mahrez, Kevin De Bruyne and Bernardo Silva in support of the Norwegian goal machine to drive City to the treble.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The sadness of club hero Cantona retiring on the back driving United to his fifth and final Premier League title with 11 goals and 12 assists in 1996\/97 will have been curbed somewhat two years later by his replacements in Barcelona.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n25) Alan Shearer (Blackburn) \u2013 Per Pedersen<\/h2>\n
24) Gareth Bale (Tottenham) \u2013 Nacer Chadli<\/h2>\n
23) Ryan Giggs (Manchester United) \u2013 Angel Di Maria<\/h2>\n
22) Luis Suarez (Liverpool) \u2013 Mario Balotelli and Rickie Lambert<\/h2>\n
21) Harry Kane (Tottenham) \u2013 Brennan Johnson<\/h2>\n
20) Didier Drogba (Chelsea) \u2013 N\/A<\/h2>\n
19) Son Heung-min (Tottenham) \u2013 Mathys Tel<\/h2>\n
18) Thierry Henry (Arsenal) \u2013 Eduardo<\/h2>\n
17) Andy Cole (Manchester United) \u2013 Diego Forlan<\/h2>\n
16) Eden Hazard (Chelsea) \u2013 Christian Pulisic<\/h2>\n
15) Dennis Bergkamp (Arsenal) \u2013 Alexander Hleb<\/h2>\n
14) Gianfranco Zola (Chelsea) \u2013 Hernan Crespo and Adrian Mutu<\/h2>\n
13) Alan Shearer (Newcastle) \u2013 Obafemi Martins<\/h2>\n
12) Sadio Mane (Liverpool) \u2013 Cody Gakpo<\/h2>\n
11) Riyad Mahrez (Manchester City) \u2013 Jeremy Doku<\/h2>\n
10) Wayne Rooney (Manchester United) \u2013 Romelu Lukaku<\/h2>\n
9) Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United) \u2013 Antonio Valencia and Gabriel Obertan<\/h2>\n
8) Robert Pires (Arsenal) \u2013 Thomas Rosicky<\/h2>\n
7) Sergio Aguero (Manchester City) \u2013 N\/A<\/h2>\n
6) Robin van Persie (Arsenal) \u2013 Olivier Giroud<\/h2>\n
5) Ruud van Nistelrooy (Manchester United) \u2013 N\/A<\/h2>\n
4) Fernando Torres (Liverpool) \u2013 Luis Suarez and Andy Carroll<\/h2>\n
3) Alexis Sanchez (Arsenal) \u2013 Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang<\/h2>\n
2) Raheem Sterling (Manchester City) \u2013 N\/A<\/h2>\n
1) Eric Cantona (Manchester United) \u2013 Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer<\/h2>\n