Fabregas and Essien would be the likely picks.
Torres a close third (Ahead of Drogba considering their ages).
I'm suprised how many people have picked Bale considering that he's only had a quarter season of good form and hasn't really proved himself with any consistency. Also, it'll be interesting to see how he adapts his game as defenses start to pay more attention to him. Right now he's all pace, no guile to his game.
You're right about Drogba. I wouldn't pick him even though I think he's head and shoulders above any striker in the league ... actually, the world. But he's too old.
I think that also might point to why folks are picking Bale. He's got a good 10 years of world class (that's right, I said it) play ahead of him. I also disagree with you on the guile front. He's got great close control and and a wicked change of pace (which is different from just pace). Both of those qualities allow him to be tricky and get past players. Only half of the times he embarrassed Maicon in the CL was due to pace; the other half was trickery, stop and start, quick ball movement stuff. Finally, you didn't mention that his crosses are brilliant and he's got a hell of a shot on him and this weekend we also just saw him plant a perfect header in by the far post, just steering it perfectly. He's pretty darn good.
Most Arsenal supporters I know, acknowledges that they do not have depth in the squad of Chelsea and Manchester United. Right now I think Arsenal is getting a bit weak, because they really don’t have amazing forwards. Chamakh is ok, van Persie is great when in top form, but he is also very injury prone, so that is almost never. Walcott is exiting and fast but also injury proned and has not showed consistency over a period of time yet. Bendtner seems unsettled at the moment... Like Tottenham they have no world class forward?
I think your analysis is showing an anti-Arsenal, or maybe more accurately pro-Utd bias. I don't want to assert which team has the better strike force, here, I just want to show that I can describe the Utd strike force in similar a way -- everything I will say is technically true, but it's only highlighting the negative and so ending up with a distorted picture
Rooney has been out of form for going on a year now, and has just gone through a huge want-away crisis. Who knows where his head is going to be, how long he'll take to get up to form this season, or even honestly, if he'll be at Utd come August 2010. In any case, he's only been a volume goal-scorer once in his career: last season. Was that a one-off or will it continue? Berbatov runs very hot and cold, and in long patches. His time at Utd is only a carry over of his time at Tottnumb -- he'll score some beautiful goals, look brilliant, and have a couple of hattrick games, but he'll also have long dry spells (though looking nonetheless brilliant throughout). He's never been a volume goal scorer. It seems that the last few weeks moreover, he's been suffering from confidence or comfort issues. Hernandez has promise, but it's really too early to say how he'll develop. In any case, at this point he's supplementary, not someone you want to have to depend on. Macheda -- same as Hernandez but more so. Nani's turning into a hot player. But still inconsistent and likely to pop up with gorgeous goals but not a lot of them.
(And about your Arsenal list: you left out Arshavin.)
The bigger issue for me is this is one of those artificial exercises -- comparing strike forces -- that really misses the forest for the trees. As you say, Arsenal has a bunch of midfielders capable of scoring goals. Nasri has 8 or something, as does Chamakh despite being just "ok." Chamakh, in fact, is a good entry-point into the discussion. We didn't buy him to be a goalscorer per se, we bought him precisely for his hold-up play and ability to play in our attacking midfielders. So when the ultimate question is, how many goals can a team score -- and this has to be the bottom-line, right? -- it seems perverse to rule midfielders out of the equation when discussing a team designed to encourage high-volume scoring from midfield.
But the real bottom-line in comparing the teams' ability to score is this: both sides have scored 26 goals, both without the use of their best striker. I'd say both are doing pretty well, all things considered, and it'd be foolish to try to assert there's a big difference in quality in either team's favor.
