Top 3 Premier League players of all-time

Red Star One

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So if it went down to choosing only 3 of the best players in the Premier League history, who would it be for you? Do we have a consensus on any names or everyone is debatable?

Top scorers:
Alan Shearer 260
Harry Kane 213
Wayne Rooney 208
Andrew Cole 187
Sergio Agüero 184
Mo Salah (active) 181
Frank Lampard 177
Thierry Henry 175
[...]
C. Ronaldo 103

Assists:
Ryan Giggs 162
Kevin de Bruyne (active) 118
Cesc Fabregas 111
Wayne Rooney 103
Frank Lampard 102
Dennis Bergkamp 94 7
David Silva 93
Steven Gerrard 92
James Milner 89
Mohamed Salah 83
[...]
Alan Shearer 64
[...]
Thierry Henry 74
C. Ronaldo 37

On goals + assists, Shearer is on 324, Rooney on 311 - way ahead of the rest of the pack. But I don't think that many people would have them in their top3 - I'd guess most popular picks now would be Henry, Ronaldo, Salah. Should Ronaldo be in this discussion considering his numbers are nowhere near other players and the fact his peak was in another league? Arguably he only had one top notch Premier League season in 07/08 (31G, 7A, immense but bettered by many) and perhaps judging by only Premier League achievements he's just not there.

Now obviously goals and assists don't tell the full story, but it's hard to look past them, even if Premier League truly had some legendary defenders and goalkeepers. But what's the top3 greatest footballes of all-time as of now?
 
Salah and Henry are in there.

The argument would be whether Ronaldo has done enough to be there. He only really had 2 truly great PL seasons in my view. I'm just not sure who would take his place, as his PL peak between 2006-08 was so just good.
 
DWelbz19 said:
Rooney + two
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I think I agree, only problem maybe is Rooney not winning enough individual awards, big shame he never got Ballon d'Or (and I don't think he was ever close, 5th position was his best IIRC). In terms of Premier League Player of the Season, there's 4 tied on two wins - Kevin De Bruyne (2019–20, 2021–22), Thierry Henry (2003–04, 2005–06) Cristiano Ronaldo (2006–07, 2007–08) Nemanja Vidić (2008–09, 2010–11) - how great was Vidić to win it twice being a defender.

Rooney has only one PotS. But for the G+A and amount of trophies won he seems to be the only certain name in the top3.
 
Gazza said:
Salah and Henry are in there.

The argument would be whether Ronaldo has done enough to be there. He only really had 2 truly great PL seasons in my view. I'm just not sure who would take his place, as his PL peak between 2006-08 was so just good.
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I'd be surprised if many non-United fans would have Ronaldo in there as they mostly remember his insane seasons in La Liga and don't have the same affiliation.
 
SilentWitness said:
I'd be surprised if many non-United fans would have Ronaldo in there as they mostly remember his insane seasons in La Liga and don't have the same affiliation.
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That's totally fine. He definitely will be in the discussion because those two years from 2006-08 are equal to (almost?) any of the other contenders' best seasons. But I can see why he wouldn't make top three for some. Personally, I think he hit higher heights than Rooney even in his short time in the Premier League, so like I say factors such as longevity need to be given significant weight for Ronaldo to be pushed out of the top three, which is fine of course.
 
I get that Ronaldo peaked in Real, but he's definitely in the conversation. Between 2007 and 2009 he won the Ballon d'Or (this has only happened 6 times in English top football) and was runner-up the other two years.

For this fact alone he is definitely top 5. You could make an argument for top 3 too.
 
Gazza said:
That's totally fine. He definitely will be in the discussion because those two years from 2006-08 are equal to (almost?) any of the other contenders' best seasons. But I can see why he wouldn't make top three for some. Personally, I think he hit higher heights than Rooney even in his short time in the Premier League, so like I say factors such as longevity need to be given significant weight for Ronaldo to be pushed out of the top three, which is fine of course.
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Yeah, I think that Henry and Salah are there in terms of the whole package (absolute peak seasons, longevity, records etc) and the third comes down to personal preference.

Rooney is there for me as I've never seen anything like it in terms of how young he was but how good he was. Best teenager I've ever seen. He has longevity and records and although his peak probably wasn't as high as any of the above, it was still higher than the overwhelming majority of players the PL has seen.
 
Ronaldo. Best player in the world at the time automatically means hes top in my eyes.

Multiple United players like Giggs/Keane/Rooney all have a shout.
 
I'll do top 3 by position.

Gk
Schmeichel
Cech
VDS

RB
Neville
Walker
Ivanovic

CB
Rio
Vidic
Bruce


LB
Irwin
Cole
Evra

CMF
Keane
Scholes
Viera

RW
Salah
Ronaldo
Beckham

LW
Giggs
Hazard
Bale

CF
Shearer
Rooney
Henry
 
Cantona …catalyst of Utd’s PL dominance

Rooney

Giggs

Salah

RvN
 
Scandi Red said:
I get that Ronaldo peaked in Real, but he's definitely in the conversation. Between 2007 and 2009 he won the Ballon d'Or (this has only happened 6 times in English top football) and was runner-up the other two years.

For this fact alone he is definitely top 5. You could make an argument for top 3 too.
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Until you realise that the only other EPL player to have won it is Michael Owen.
 
Red Star One said:
Giggs is honestly very much underrated in this discussion
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United players are.

You'd be forgiven for thinking Arsenal and Liverpool were the dominant teams of their era, reading this thread. Apparently United won league trophies with a bunch of scrubs. Chelsea and City too, to a lesser extent
 
B20 said:
Until you realise that the only other EPL player to have won it is Michael Owen.
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The second part of my sentence matters though. It's not just that Ronaldo deservedly won the Ballon d'Or in an era of Kaka, Messi and Xavi. It's also that he was runner-up twice, unlike Owen. To be the best or second best player in the world for 3 years running is very special.
 
Eddy_JukeZ said:
Keane is criminally underrated by football fans now. I thought about putting him in the top 3 too.

Greatest captain in Premier League history.
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I agree, but in fact pretty much all the players who are not very much goalscoring end up underrated in such discussions. Unfairly, yes.
 
Salah, Henry and Rooney. Ronaldo reached the highest peak of any player to play in this league but he wasn't here for long enough.
 
Roy Keane, Rooney and Henry without a shadow of a doubt.

Shout outs to Salah, KDB, Giggs, Shearer, Lampard, Scholes who could be there as well.

Defenders never usually included but Ferdinand, Van Djik, John Terry for defenders.
 
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Giggs, Rooney and probably Henry/Ronaldo considering their highs and longevity.

Hard to put Salah or Shearer when they've only won one PL title.
 
Has to be: Henry, Rooney & Salah - assuming "PL" titles won isn't necessarily a criteria.

Almost impossible not have in the likes of Shearer, Giggs & possibly the likes of Gerrard/Lampard? I'd discount Ronaldo due to lack of longevity - unless the metric was based on absolute "1 season peak".

Difficult to bring defenders in here but surely the likes of Terry/Rio, Keane/Scholes/Vieira & a couple others deserve a shout?
 
In this day and age all people seem to care about is which players have the most goals or assists.

The top three PL players of all time based on greatness are; Giggs, Scholes and Roy Keane. The amount of titles they won and their influence on several United teams is unparallelled.

Greatness aside, the best 3 at their absolute peak are probably Henry, Rooney and Ronaldo.

The best 3 overall though, I would say Henry, Rooney, Scholes.
 
Funnily enough, you can easily make up a top-3 without a United player.

Henry and, ugh, Salah have more or less secured two of those spots, especially if he wins the title this year (seems almost impossible not to). The third one can go to Ronaldo (best peak level), Giggs (best longevity), Cantona (biggest immediate impact) or even someone like Shearer, Keane or De Bruyne. Personally, I'd probably go with Rooney — he seems like the perfect mix between longevity, influence & peak performance.
 
Eddy_JukeZ said:
Keane is criminally underrated by football fans now. I thought about putting him in the top 3 too.

Greatest captain in Premier League history.
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Yeah.

The OP is a setup with listing attackers and stats. I'll give you Henry, fair. Salah? Must be recency bias.

Red Star One said:
I agree, but in fact pretty much all the players who are not very much goalscoring end up underrated in such discussions. Unfairly, yes.
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Be the change you want to see in the world :)
 
harms said:
Funnily enough, you can easily make up a top-3 without a United player.

Henry and, ugh, Salah have more or less secured two of those spots, especially if he wins the title this year (seems almost impossible not to). The third one can go to Ronaldo (best peak level), Giggs (best longevity), Cantona (biggest immediate impact) or even someone like Shearer, Keane or De Bruyne. Personally, I'd probably go with Rooney — he seems like the perfect mix between longevity, influence & peak performance.
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Agreed. Criteria dictates the third choice, but the other two feel nailed in.
 
Salah and Henry are clear for me and then number 3 is very hard but my heart says Rooney.

Did Scholes really only get 55 premier league assists? Seems shockingly low
 
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