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Thierry Henry believes there is only one 'world class' striker in Premier League

Chelsea, Manchester United and Tottenham all have strikers who are close but Henry believes they still have much to prove at the very highest level

Tuesday 26 September 2017 10:42 BST

'We should be happy to have these guys in the Premier League' (Getty Images)

Sergio Aguero, Romelu Lukaku and Alvaro Morata sit atop the Premier League’s scoring charts after a blistering start to the season.

Harry Kane only has four compared to their six – but the Spurs forward never scores in August so their head start is unlikely to last long.

According to Thierry Henry, however, only one of those men can be deemed world class.

Where does Kane rank among the Premier League's young goalscorers?

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1/11Where does Kane rank among the Premier League's young goalscorers?

Where does Kane rank among the Premier League's young goalscorers?

Kane's competition

Harry Kane loves to follow his stats and, at the age of 24 years and 59 days, he had 82 Premier League goals to his name. But where does that put him in a ranking of strikers by the number of Premier League goals they had scored by that specific age?

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Where does Kane rank among the Premier League's young goalscorers?

Emile Heskey, Leicester City, 57 goals

Another player whose teenage physicality made him an imposing striker for Martin O’Neill’s Leicester City, he scored plenty of goals before making his big money move to Liverpool.

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Where does Kane rank among the Premier League's young goalscorers?

Matt Le Tissier, Southampton, 65 goals (includes old First Division goals)

Another, like Shearer, whose goals in the old First Division before 1992 have seen him included in this list, Le Tissier was a brilliant individual and a loyal one-club man who never won the team medals his talent deserved.

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Where does Kane rank among the Premier League's young goalscorers?

Andy Cole, Newcastle United and Manchester United, 70 goals

Most known for his role in the Manchester United treble-winning side, Cole was a brilliant striker at Newcastle United before he went to Old Trafford, a star of the Kevin Keegan team before the arrival of Alan Shearer.

Where does Kane rank among the Premier League's young goalscorers?

Alan Shearer, Southampton and Blackburn, 77 goals (includes old First Division goals)

The man Kane is most often compared to, Shearer was behind where Kane is now at his age, although he showed remarkable consistency and has the current Premier League goalscoring record of 260, and by a distance.

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Where does Kane rank among the Premier League's young goalscorers?

Cristiano Ronaldo, Manchester United, 81 goals

It says something that Kane has more Premier League goals than Ronaldo did at the same age, given how good he was in his last three years at Manchester United. But since then Ronaldo has gone onto another level entirely, and with even more success.

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Where does Kane rank among the Premier League's young goalscorers?

Harry Kane, Tottenham, 82 goals

Dispelled early doubters to become Mauricio Pochettino’s main man, winning consecutive Golden Boot trophies and already looking, like Lukaku, as if he will push beyond 100 and towards 200 Premier League goals soon enough.

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Where does Kane rank among the Premier League's young goalscorers?

Romelu Lukaku, Chelsea, West Bromwich Albion and Everton, 85 goals

Very slightly older than Harry Kane, Lukaku is just ahead of him in terms of Premier League goals, having proved himself at West Brom and Everton despite not quite making it at Chelsea.

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Where does Kane rank among the Premier League's young goalscorers?

Wayne Rooney, Everton and Manchester United, 91 goals

Arrived in senior football as a bullish 16-year-old at Everton and then enjoyed remarkable success there and at Manchester United, starting a brilliant career that is still going.

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Where does Kane rank among the Premier League's young goalscorers?

Robbie Fowler, Liverpool, 106 goals

Another Liverpool wonderkid, Fowler was the much-loved goalscoring hero a few years before Owen, and similarly he played his best football in his early 20s. His career stagnated after moves to Leeds United and Manchester City.

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Where does Kane rank among the Premier League's young goalscorers?

Michael Owen, Liverpool, 111 goals

No-one has scored more Premier League goals by this age than Owen, who was a teenage prodigy for Liverpool in the late 1990s and won the Ballon d’Or – as Kane would dearly love to – in 2001. Like many on this list he peaked in his early 20s and was not the same player after.

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"The closest to being world class, or is world class, or has been world class is Aguero because of the longevity of what he has done in the Premier League year in, year out," the former Arsenal forward said on Monday Night Football.

"He's won the league here and got to the final of the World Cup. He's been doing it the longest so you have to give him a bit of credit. I think we sometimes bypass Aguero like he didn't happen but we all agree that stats show he's the best.”

Jamie Carragher believes the Premier League quartet are just below Barcelona’s Luis Suarez and Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski – with Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo some way out in front.

Henry feels the others can become world class if they prove it at the very highest level.

“The other three, they will be [world class] but they are not yet,” he added.

“Lukaku has only just arrived at Manchester United and he's not played in the Champions League.

"Morata, more often than not, came off the bench for Real Madrid and when he was at Juventus he had a good year but playing with Carlos Tevez or Fernando Llorente that wasn't his team. He's trying to make Chelsea his team just like Lukaku is trying to make United his team.”

"For Kane, unfortunately for him, it was a short Champions League campaign with Spurs and a short Europa League. The Euros were short also for him.

“The others, I have no doubt will be. Kane himself said he's not in that bracket yet because of the reasons I mentioned.”

There should be many goals ahead.

“We should be happy to have these guys in the Premier League,” Henry added.

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