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With just 12 games remaining for most of the sides in the Premier League this season, it’s been another year largely dominated by star strikers. Harry Kane has already bagged 22, Mohamed Salah is close behind on 21, and usual suspects such as Romelu Lukaku, Sergio Aguero, Roberto Firmino and Jamie Vardy have been practically as reliable as ever.
For every Kane or Salah though, this season’s seen as many strikers having major issues with their form. Whether it’s down to a lack of service, a lack of confidence, or plain bad luck, the following 5 strikers simply keep on misfiring in 2017/18.
They could end up picking up their form towards the end the season, but right now you wouldn’t want them on your side. With that said, these have been 5 of the worst Premier League strikers this season:
#5 Fernando Llorente (Tottenham Hotspur)
Last season, Fernando Llorente was one of the Premier League’s most reliable strikers, scoring 15 league goals in 33 games at struggling Swansea. If anything, he was one of the main reasons that Paul Clement was able to keep the side in the Premier League.
It was pretty clear though that going into 2017/18, the Welsh side would find it hard to keep hold of their Spanish star, and even brought in Chelsea starlet Tammy Abraham on loan to serve as their new striker.
Tottenham, meanwhile, were looking for a backup for Harry Kane after Vincent Janssen misfired throughout 2016/17, and so they identified Llorente as their man. Despite rumours linking him to Chelsea, he joined Spurs on the summer transfer window’s deadline day for a fee of £12 million. And unfortunately for the Spaniard, it’s been downhill ever since.
Llorente has only started one Premier League game – against old club Swansea ironically – which was to be expected given Kane’s form, but he’s made 13 appearances from the bench and has only found the net once.
It’s a record that’s just as bad as Janssen’s last season! It simply feels like a case of Llorente’s battering-ram style not fitting into Tottenham’s usual way of playing, and realistically, he may have made a mistake not taking the move to Chelsea when it was offered.
#4 Wilfried Bony (Swansea)
Part of Swansea’s willingness to sell Fernando Llorente to Tottenham in the August transfer window likely had something to do with the fact that Wilfried Bony was returning to the club for the same fee.
The Ivorian striker had of course been a massive hit in Wales during his two seasons there, scoring 26 goals before a move to Manchester City largely damaged his career, as he spent most of his time on the bench.
A fruitless loan campaign at Stoke City hadn’t worked last season, so the move to Swansea seemed like Bony’s best hope of regaining his mojo. Unfortunately, that hasn’t really been the case.
Bony struggled for fitness upon his arrival – almost to be expected given his lack of activity – and then found it tricky both as a lone striker and as a partner for Tammy Abraham up front.
He did appear to be regaining some form in December, as he scored two goals including the winner against West Bromwich Albion. But since then he’s dropped in and out of the team and the goal against West Brom is the last time he’s found the net in a league game.
With Swansea now having signed Andre Ayew – and Bony having suffered an ACL injury that should sideline him for some time – it looks like the Ivorian will have his career put on hold once again.
#3 Shane Long (Southampton)
Shane Long has hardly been the Premier League’s most prolific striker in recent years – his best effort was ten goals for Southampton in 2015/16 – but this season he’s struggled more than ever before.
The Irish international has only found the net once in the league this season despite starting in 12 of Southampton’s games and appearing a further 7 times as a substitute.
In 2016/17 Long famously ended a 23-game barren streak by scoring against West Bromwich Albion, but this season was almost as bad – his lone Premier League goal came against Crystal Palace on January 2nd – and it was his first for the Saints in the league since February 2017, when he scored in a 4-0 win over Sunderland.
With this kind of form, you’ve got to wonder why Southampton keep the faith with him.
Not that their other strikers have been much better – the Saints have scored 28 goals in the league but only ten have come from their strikers – 1 from Long, 6 from top scorer Charlie Austin and 3 from Manolo Gabbiadini.
It’s simply not good enough and while they might finish safely due to their relatively solid back line, it’s imperative that they replace the misfiring Long in the next transfer window.
#2 Christian Benteke (Crystal Palace)
Just a handful of seasons ago – particularly during his peak years at Aston Villa – Christian Benteke was one of the most feared hitmen in the Premier League. The Belgian bulldozer scored an impressive 42 goals over his three seasons at Villa Park and seemed to be regaining his form last season when he hit 15 at Crystal Palace in his first term at the club.
This season though hasn’t quite gone as planned. Benteke has played in 20 Premier League games for Palace, starting in 18 of them, and he’s only scored a measly two goals.
Granted, he missed almost two months between late September and late November with an injury, but since then he’s practically been ever-present and still appears to be misfiring, even if three assists in recent games is a slight comfort for him.
While Palace have climbed from the bottom of the table up to a respectable 14th place currently under the new stewardship of former England boss Roy Hodgson, Benteke has hardly helped matters.
Palace’s most prolific goalscorers are all midfielders like Luka Milivojevic and Wilfried Zaha, and if those goals dry up and Benteke doesn’t find his shooting boots soon, they could well find themselves sucked back into a nasty relegation battle.
#1 Kelechi Iheanacho (Leicester City)
Okay, so it’s true that Kelechi Iheanacho has hardly been given a lot of playing time in the Premier League this season for Leicester City – 3 starts and 8 appearances from the bench – but any striker has to be judged on goals and even perennial Chelsea sub Michy Batshuayi managed 2 league goals before being shipped off on loan to Borussia Dortmund. Iheanacho, meanwhile, has a grand total of zero Premier League goals in 2017/18.
That’s simply not good enough for a man who cost the Foxes a pretty hefty £25 million fee from Manchester City in the summer. At City, it was always likely that he’d be used as a substitute given their attacking riches, but at Leicester, he had to have expected more playing time despite the existence of Jamie Vardy.
But that just hasn’t been the case and when he has featured, he’s struggled to impress both pundits and his two managers – Craig Shakespeare and now Claude Puel.
Recently the young Nigerian’s form has begun to improve – he scored four goals in two FA Cup ties in January, and then assisted in Jamie Vardy’s goal against Swansea this weekend and was named Man of the Match in some publications.
But with no Premier League goals still to his credit and Vardy and Shinji Okazaki still ahead of him in the pecking order, he’s got a long way to go before he’s considered anything more than a flop this season.
