VAR, Aguero the GOAT, Liverpool's unbeaten run - 5 Talking Points from this weekend's Premier League action

#2 Is Aguero the greatest striker the Premier League has ever seen?

Sergio Aguero scored his 12th Premier League hat-trick this weekend

Aston Villa’s defence might’ve made things easier than they should’ve been, but it was another fantastic weekend for Sergio Aguero as he scored his 12th Premier League hat-trick in Manchester City’s match against the Midlands side, helping Pep Guardiola’s men to a thumping 1-6 victory. The Argentine also broke some records in the process.

Aguero’s hat-trick gave him the most trebles in Premier League history, while his second goal made him the highest overseas goalscorer in the competition’s history too, taking him past the legendary Thierry Henry. And finally, his third moved him level with Frank Lampard on 177 goals, putting him in joint 4th place in the Premier League’s list of all-time top goalscorers – behind only Andy Cole, Wayne Rooney and Alan Shearer.

So is the Argentine now the best striker the Premier League has ever seen? It’s certainly a fair debate. The Argentine notably has the highest goals to games ratio in the upper echelon of the all-time scoring chart, with a ratio of 0.69, compared to 0.29 for Lampard, 0.45 for Cole, 0.42 for Rooney and 0.59 for Shearer.

That would suggest that Aguero is the best, but there are of course a couple of caveats; for starters, Shearer scored a total of 260 Premier League goals, but he’d already played a total of 5 seasons in what was England’s top flight prior to the inauguration of the competition. Had the Premier League existed back then, you could add a further 23 goals to the Geordie striker’s overall haul.

It’s worth noting too that Aguero has only ever played for Manchester City, and in each of his seasons, his side have been amongst the best in the league, always challenging for the title. Shearer won the Premier League title with Blackburn in 1994-95, but with Newcastle, he spent a lot of time toiling in the mid-table.

For me, Shearer still slightly edges the Argentine hitman out, but for anyone to claim Aguero is the greatest Premier League striker ever is probably fair too.