Let’s be honest …
This has been a great season for English strikers.
Daniel Sturridge’s injury woes combined with Wayne Rooney’s shift to a midfield role at Manchester United seemed to have left England’s attack short handed. However with Harry Kane, Charlie Austin and Danny Ings breaking onto the scene in a big way, the future of England’s strike force now looks incredibly promising.
Now, before people in the midlands start sharpening their pitchforks, Saido Berahino is not included in this list as he already made a sizeable impact last season.
Harry Kane has been an absolute revelation at Tottenham Hotspur. Having scored 11 goals in his last 10 Premier League appearances (23 in all competitions), Kane has clearly established himself as the best striker at Tottenham and one of the best in the country.
His second goal against Chelsea was proof of his class as he consecutively turned Nemanja Matic, ‘megged John Terry, and beat Thibaut Courtois at the far post. With a decent eye for a pass, great finishing ability, and elite level positioning he should be largely slump-proof going forward.
Charlie Austin, despite being largely overlooked at Queens Park Rangers, has been having a brilliant season. With absolute stunners versus Southampton and Chelsea he has shown that he is not just a stereotypical poacher, but can create his own chances and finish them with aplomb. It will be very interesting to see where he lands next year when (not if) QPR go down.
Danny Ings was drawn into the limelight due to his proposed moves to Tottenham and Liverpool. Despite this, Burnley decided that their best chance at staying up was to keep Ings, and man were they right as he has scored 5 goals in his last 6 matches but the results just will not come.
Ings will be out of contract this summer and will likely draw interest from many top clubs. Despite not having as many goals as Kane or Austin, he has created more chances (27) and assists (4) than his counterparts.
So how do Kane, Austin, and Ings compare to some of the other big name English strikers? Get ready for another instalment of …
FACT TIME!
With ‘debut season‘ meaning the first year a player had 20+ appearances in the top flight.
| Player | Debut Season | Goals | Appearances | Age |
| Les Ferdinand | 1992/93 | 20 | 37 | 27 |
| Michael Owen | 1997/98 | 18 | 36 | 17 |
| Harry Kane | 2014/15 | 13 | 21 | 21 |
| Charlie Austin | 2014/15 | 13 | 22 | 25 |
| Robbie Fowler | 1993/94 | 12 | 28 | 22 |
| Andy Cole | 1992/93 | 12 | 29 | 21 |
| Daniel Sturridge | 2011/12 | 11 | 30 | 22 |
| Teddy Sheringham | 1988/89 | 11 | 33 | 22 |
| Jermaine Defoe | 2001/02 | 10 | 35 | 19 |
| Danny Ings | 2014/15 | 9 | 22 | 22 |
| Wayne Rooney | 2002/03 | 6 | 33 | 17 |
| Saido Berahino | 2013/14 | 5 | 32 | 20 |
| Alan Shearer | 1989/90 | 3 | 26 | 19 |
- Harry Kane and Charlie Austin, joint third on this list, still have 12 matches to play
- Kane has scored in 62% of matches played this season …
- … the most for an English striker in their debut season, yet only 2 percentage points ahead of …
- … Charlie Austin at 60%
- At this pace, Kane and Austin will both finish with 20 goals
- They would be just the second English duo to score 20+ goals this millennium …
- … and the only two to do so in their debut season in the Premier League era!
As crazy as it sounds, we are witnessing the two greatest debut seasons from English strikers in the last 23 years! The next closest pair were Andy Cole and Les Ferdinand in 1992/93 with 12 and 20 goals respectively, and the following year they scored a combined 50 goals!
Not only are Harry Kane, Charlie Austin, and Danny Ings (to a lesser extent) having great debut seasons as English strikers, but great debut seasons for any strikers! Luis Suarez, Robin van Persie, Didier Drogba, Emmanuel Adebayor and Dimitar Berbatov headline the list of players who had less impact in their first season than this years English trio.
I do not envy the choice Roy Hodgson will have to make when deciding which of these talented strikers he will leave at home come Euro 2016, but this season has shown that the future of England’s attack is bright, and a third of it is lilywhite.
