The Premier League is the home of many top strikers, but Emile Heskey believes they all lack a quality he and other retired forwards possessed.
Liverpool broke their transfer record at the turn of the century to sign Emile Heskey from Leicester City. He played at Anfield during a very successful period for the club, as the Reds won the UEFA Cup and UEFA Super Cup, as well as the FA Cup and two League Cups.
Heskey was never known to be the most prolific goalscorer, but in his opinion, he possessed a quality which many current Premier League strikers lack. In fact, the former England international even claimed he would have “no problem” attacking against current Liverpool centre-back Virgil van Dijk.
Speaking on Beast Mode On Podcast, Heskey emphasised on the lack of dribbling among today’s strikers and that the current crop of Premier League defenders wouldn’t handle the dribbling strikers of his era.
“Let’s go back to my era when talking about strikers. Every single one was a dribbler. Defenders don’t like that, they don’t have strikers who dribble now.
They have strikers that are making runs, and trying to score goals, but they don’t have dribblers.”
While Heskey mentioned himself as a striker who could dribble, he also named four other players who were around during his era that knew how to take on a defender.
“Stan Collymore, 6ft 4 and a dribbler that can move like that. Dwight Yorke, myself, Andy Cole, Michael [Owen]. Current defenders wouldn’t be able to handle that.”
These days, dribbling is an art which is more likely to be associated with wingers. Players such as Manchester City’s Jeremy Doku and Tottenham’s summer signing Mohammed Kudus often impress with their abilities to carry the ball forwards and beat defenders.
There are strikers in the Premier League such as Erling Haaland who have plenty of pace, but his strength is not in beating defenders in one-on-one duels.
However, Heskey is a firm believer that if a striker is able to dribble with the ball, they have the power to cause even the best defenders a world of problems.
