Irish lads back top

N Ireland U-21s Estonia U-21s

dinked his finish in the far corner, and you think, ‘Wow, top drawer’. It’s too early to say who’s going to win the Golden Boot because we don’t know how much injuries will play a part.

“But the four early frontrunners are all capable of hitting the magic 30-goal mark, even if the sat-nav sends them down different roads to get there.

“You can go down the physical route of pace and power, where Lukaku will obviously thrive, Aguero is the ultimate fox in the box, although he’s also good in the air, and Kane is a real all-rounder because he’s good at every aspect of forward play.

“One thing they all have in common is that they all have fantastic players around them.

“From the early evidence, it could turn out to be a record-breaking season, in terms of both individual milestones and teams scoring a century of goals.

“It would be great to see at least one player hit the 30-plus mark – that’s a sort of holy grail for a striker in the Premier League, and I’m still grateful that I managed to do it. It’s one of my proudest achievements in the game.”

Phillips retired, two months before his 41st birthday, in 2014, with 287 goals to his name, and his partnership with Niall Quinn at Sunderland was a prolific double act.

He said: “When I look back, I was in my first season in the Premier League, my first year taking on the big boys, and we overcame some high hurdles to finish seventh.

“As a relative unknown at that level, it probably earned me a few goals – but after winning the Golden Boot, I was a marked man.

“Centre-backs like Martin Keown and Jaap Stam were determined not to let me get the better of them, and now it’s the turn of Lukaku, Kane, and those other top-quality strikers to live with being marked men every week.” NORTHERN Ireland Under-21s moved to the top of Euro 2019 qualifying Group Two with a 4-2 home victory against Estonia at Mourneview Park last night.

Ryan Johnson and Dale Gorman scored either side of two goals from the visitors in an entertaining first half, before two second half efforts from Mark Sykes sealed the win.

Johnson gave Northern Ireland the perfect start when he scored in the opening goal after just two minutes but close-range tap-ins from Frank Liivak and Rauno Sappinen turned the game on its head.

A lovely long-range strike by Gorman levelled things up heading in to the break before Glenavon’s Sykes restored the host’s lead.

Sykes’ 30-yard strike then led to the fourth goal, with the ball finding the back of the net via the back of the Estonian goalkeeper.