IS AGUERO THE BEST OVERSEAS STAR?
Following Aguero’s record-breaking Premier League exploits, Sportsmail’s experts pick the greatest overseas stars
No other player left such an indelible mark on his club or our game in the short time that he played in england.
ronaldo won three consecutive Premier League titles with Manchester United between 2006 and 2009. he was the touchstone for a Sir Alex Ferguson team who also won an FA Cup, two League Cups and a Champions League.
only 18 when he arrived from Sporting Lisbon in 2003, he was on his way to becoming the world’s best footballer by the time he left six seasons later. they call that progress.
ronaldo was born with sublime natural gifts but also a willingness to work hard. he could be frustrating and, yes, he was indulged at times. But greatness gets you privileges and it persuades managers to build teams around you. team-mates will make sacrifices if they know they will be repaid with medals and glory.
SERGIO AGUERO Kieran Gill
MARTIN TYLER’S cry of ‘Agueroooo’ is up there with Kenneth Wolstenholme’s ‘ they think it’s all over… it is now.’
This was the Premier League’s most dramatic moment, as Aguero dodged taye taiwo’s poor challenge and scored to defeat QPR in stoppage time.
Meanwhile, 140 miles away in Sunderland, Sir Alex Ferguson was trying his best to put on a brave face as confirmation came through. Manchester City were the 2012 champions, Manchester United were not.
this was pure entertainment, and the first of Aguero’s four titles. his goalscoring exploits turned City into an elite force.
thierry henry was exhilarating to watch at Arsenal, and eric Cantona was iconic. there are many more imports we could mention, from ruud van Nistelrooy to Dennis Bergkamp. But if your team was in a final and needed a last-gasp goal, who would you want leading the line? i’d want Aguero.
THIERRY HENRY Chris Sutton
TWO names come to mind: thierry henry and Sergio Aguero. these are two tremendous performers, prolific goalscorers, but i’d have to side with henry. the impact he had at Arsenal was magnificent.
Some of his goals were iconic — that flick and volley against Manchester United in 2000 was a thing of beauty. the skills he possessed, the pace, the trickery, the ability to assist and score.
imagine being a defender lining up against henry in the tunnel. you’d be petrified. he had everything. he was unplayable at times as he drifted out to the left wing.
Aguero may have won twice as many titles as henry, but if i was asked to pick one player to watch on a Saturday afternoon, it would be the Frenchman.
ERIC CANTONA Chris Wheeler
AS Manchester United labour through the comparatively fallow years of the post-Ferguson era, it’s easy to forget just how bleak the landscape was at old trafford before the Scot won his first league title in 1993.
one player was the catalyst for that success and the unprecedented dominance that followed over the next two decades, and for that eric Cantona should go down as the Premier League’s greatest foreign player.
Cantona only spent four and a half years at United, but in that time he won four league titles and two FA Cups, paving the way for everything that followed under Ferguson.
Cantona’s personal stats might not match up to some of the other foreign stars who have graced english football. But numbers alone can’t do justice to what he brought to United.
No player has imposed his will on a team and the Premier League with quite the same style and swagger.
THIERRY HENRY Ian Herbert
PERHAPS it is because there was time back then to stop and stare and replay the highlights, the goals, the moments of intuitive and extraordinary brilliance that thierry henry stands head and shoulders above the rest.
henry played like someone who had arrived from another planet, rather than Juventus. Match of the Day back then seemed to be a weekly exercise in extrapolating why he was so good.
‘Striker’ didn’t really define him. the penalty box was a part of his ambit. he ran, he passed, he linked, he scored, he hardly ever seemed to draw breath. there seemed nothing that henry could not do — getting audiences off their seats in a way few out-andout goalscorers can.
And he did it for so long, scoring 228 goals and providing 74 assists in 376 appearances for Arsenal, becoming the only individual to win the Football Writers’ Association Footballer of the year Award three times.
Never has watching a footballer seemed so life-affirming. the prolific Aguero seems almost mechanical by comparison.
PATRICK VIEIRA Martin Keown
I WAS privileged to play with three Premier League greats — thierry henry, Dennis Bergkamp and Patrick Vieira. Asking me to name only one of those three is like asking me to choose between brothers. there is a gnat’s hair between them, but i’d like to highlight Vieira here. i’m not sure his contribution to Arsenal is appreciated enough. Without him feeding henry and Bergkamp, they would not have scored the goals they did, and we would not have lifted the trophies we did. he controlled the midfield. he was a catalyst for success off the pitch and made our team tick on it.
Vieira was a very determined individual, incredibly strongminded and demanding. it is no coincidence that when he left in 2005, after securing three Premier League titles, the trophies dried up for the Gunners.
DAVID SILVA Daniel Matthews
It is easy to be sucked in by the charisma and quality of players such as eric Cantona and thierry henry. But David Silva’s tendency to operate in the shadows should not diminish his genius.
For a decade, he has been the beating heart of Manchester City, amassing 57 goals, 90 assists, and four Premier League titles.
Perhaps the most telling statistic of his City career is this: over 10 seasons, Silva has won only one player of the month award. it’s a travesty that serves only to illustrate how statistics cannot do justice to Silva’s brilliance.
For a decade he has lived apart from the rest — always in a yard of space, always one step ahead.
As english football has been transformed, Silva has helped redefine the role of the midfielder and reshape the conversation about what makes a good player.
Silva has no real pace, power or physical advantages. he is short, slight, and long past the wrong side of 30. Under Pep Guardiola he has dropped deeper but, with the same intelligence and class, has helped turn City into one of this country’s greatest teams.