Ranked! The 100 best Premier League players ever

50. Ian Wright

Wright was 29 when the Premier League was founded.

Arsenal came 10th in the first Premier League campaign but won both the FA Cup and League Cup, with their No.8 tallying 30 in all competitions; in fact, he bagged at least 15 league goals in the first six of his seven Highbury seasons, and at least 23 in half of those, thriving alongside Alan Smith or Kevin Campbell in attack for George Graham’s last few league campaigns.

Wright was a lesson that good things come to those who work hard, and remains a huge fan favourite more than two decades after exiting Arsenal. He was nearly 30 when the Premier League came calling – but wasted no time lighting it up.

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The finishing touch? With Arsenal’s all-time scoring record on the line, Wright notched against Bolton in September 1997, then gleefully revealed his famous T-shirt bragging, “179. Just Done It.”

He had only equalled Cliff Bastin’s 60-year record, so netted two more before full-time to make sure.

49. Nemanja Vidic

Vidic endured a difficult first six months after moving from Spartak Moscow, but was captain by 2010.

It was a measure of the “uncompromising sod” – Fergie’s words. Not ours.

Rio Ferdinand’s 2002 arrival at Old Trafford was huge, but the picture was incomplete until £7m bargain Vidic rocked up. United uncovered another leader with no significant weaknesses in the terrace favourite.

For a generation, this man helped define the Premier League, the Wile E. Coyote to Fernando Torres' Roadrunner. He took no prisoners: Vidic is perhaps the last of the world-class, no-nonsense centre-backs before the advent of Stonses, Van Dijks and Salibas.

The Serbian is still the only defender to be named Premier League Player of the Season twice.

48. Gary Neville

Zealous celebrations after a late Rio Ferdinand winner against Liverpool at Old Trafford in January 2006 secured legendary status among Red Devils (if he wasn't already).

And an FA fine. Boo.

Younger generations recognise the straight-talking pundit, but those who watched G-Nev play will recall his days as a boisterous right-back over almost 20 years at United. His intelligence, tough tackling and top-notch crossing made him an Old Trafford mainstay, even as his manager rebuilt several title-winning sides.

47. Fernando Torres

Rafa Benitez had taken Liverpool two Champions League finals in his first three seasons at the club and turned their defence into the strongest in the land. They had Steven Gerrard and Xabi Alonso in midfield. But they lacked the genuinely brilliant centre-forward they needed to become title contenders.

Enter Fernando Torres in the summer of 2007. Likeable and hugely effective, Torres scored exciting goals by the bagful and became an instant smash hit.

In his first season, he became the first Liverpool player since Robbie Fowler a decade earlier to breach the 30 goal barrier in all competitions. In his second, he helped fire them to their first legitimate title challenge for over 20 years, despite starting to struggle with niggling injuries.

We all know how it ended, of course: Torres became public enemy number one with Liverpool fans after taking a dramatic £50m move to heated rivals Chelsea, where he flopped. But even there, he was the hero, just for one night, with that goal against Barcelona.

El Nino fever was palpable in the Prem. Few have ever captured the imagination like he did at the start.

46. Michael Owen

Forget his steep decline and those ill-fated and bizarre spells at Newcastle United, Manchester United and Stoke City.

It's hard to explain just what a grip a young Michael Owen had over mainstream culture – not just football. He was just 24 when he left Liverpool for Real Madrid, yet makes this list almost solely on the basis of what he did there. That’s how good he was in those years.

There wasn’t a huge amount of sophistication or selflessness to Owen’s game, but his unbelievable pace, positional awareness and unfailing finishing ability allowed him to get in on goalkeepers again and again before gleefully slotting past them as if they were a poor unfortunate 13-year-old.

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Trying to diminish the 90s icon by calling him a one-trick pony would be doing down what a fabulously effective trick it was, especially when his side needed him most (and besides, he was better in the air than he often got credit for).

His 2001 Ballon d’Or win says it all.

45. Kyle Walker

Ranked at No.5 in FourFourTwo's list of the best Premier League defenders of all time, Walker has been part of a revolution in the way we think about what full-backs are expected to do.

Signed from hometown club Sheffield United as a youngster, Walker played a big role in helping Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham finally make the leap into becoming Champions League regulars before making the move to Manchester City in 2017.

As unlikely as it might have seemed, Walker went on to be an even more important player at the Etihad Stadium.

The full-back’s recovery pace, attacking ability and tactical flexibility made Walker one of Pep Guardiola’s most trusted players throughout their time together at City, helping them to win six league titles including the 2023 Treble.

44. Robbie Fowler

It’s hard to overstate just what a sensation Fowler was when he burst onto the scene as a teenager at Liverpool.

Just seven games into his career, the striker had 10 goals to his name. By the time he turned 23, he had 118 goals in 188 games in all competitions. Reds fans called him ‘God’ for good reason.

It felt there was nothing Fowler couldn’t do in front of goal, boasting two great feet and a tremendous variety of finishes. Unfortunately, serious injuries and the emergence of Michael Owen came together at more or less the same time to hamper Fowler’s Liverpool career, and he was never able to recapture the incredible promise he had once shown as he moved on to Leeds, Manchester City, and back to Anfield.

It says a lot about how good Fowler was that he nonetheless sits just behind Thierry Henry in the Premier League all-time goalscorer charts. He was electric when he first arrived in this team.

In another universe, he led England into the 1998 World Cup. In this one, he was still pretty damn good.

43. Trent Alexander-Arnold

Few players revolutionise a position in football – but that’s exactly what Trent Alexander-Arnold has done at full-back.

Once the preserve of your least technical player, Trent has reversed that notion with his wicked passing talent. One of the first footballers often dubbed a ‘quarterback’ – a position that doesn’t really exist in our round-ball version of the game – he gets that moniker thanks to his ability to dictate play from the backline with his immense range, vision and precision.

Some say he's the greatest full-back that the league has ever seen. One thing's for certain: he's the most unique. There's simply never been anyone like him.

For all the questions about defensive lapses, Jurgen Klopp and Arne Slot both calculated that what he offers creatively more than compensates. His 13 assists as the Reds lifted the league title in 2019/20 suggests it’s a sensible gamble. His influence on that side, for the best part of a decade, goes far deeper than statistics can explain.

How do you replace a player in a position that doesn’t exist? Liverpool may well find out this summer. His Reds legacy may be in flux: his Premier League legacy is not.

42. Vincent Kompany

Manchester City got plenty of signings wrong when the money taps started flowing over a decade ago, but in Vincent Kompany lies one they certainly got right.

Kompany’s quiet two seasons at Hamburg before signing for City won’t have helped him stand out ahead of the likes of Robinho, Wayne Bridge and Shaun Wright-Phillips – all recruited in the same window – but only one of that quartet is immortalised in steel outside Etihad Stadium. Few were as crucial as Kompany on City’s journey from mid-table minnows to Premier League heavyweights.

A leader, an elite defender and a man for the big moments. His career at City was encapsulated perfectly by his game-winning screamer against Leicester City, stepping out of his comfort zone to singlehandedly leapfrog Liverpool in the penultimate game of the season.

Now shining in the dugout for Bayern Munich, who’s to say his story in east Manchester is complete?

41. Robert Pires

One-third of arguably the Premier League's greatest-ever left flank – along with Thierry Henry and Ashley Cole – Robert Pires didn't have the speed or the power associated with left-wingers of them. Henry and Cole supplied enough of that by the bucketload.

The deft Frenchman instead leant elegance to the Arsenal side. Arsene Wenger famously opined that he believed the goal with everything in life should be to do it so well that it becomes an art – and Pires embodied such expressiveness.

In an age in which only the strongest survived in English football, Arsenal's no.7 avoided being roughed up by slight of shoulder. His trademark move was dummy and sit a defender on their backside before shimmying in the opposite direction, and often, he'd made the pass before opponents had cottoned on to get a tackle in.

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In 2001/02, he racked up 15 assists before a cruciate ligament injury ruled him out of the Gunners' sumptuous run-in, that included beating Chelsea in Cardiff to wrap up the FA Cup, and Manchester United at Old Trafford to win the league days later. When Pires got his hands on the trophy, his team-mates took to their knees to bow in his presence.

Fine praise, indeed, from some of the greatest the English game has ever seen.

40. Denis Irwin

Captain for the final game of the 2001-02 season, Irwin was given the United send-off he deserved. Oh, and he helped keep a clean sheet.

That was the only important bit. Out of anyone Alex Ferguson had the privilege of mentoring, he named Denis Irwin his greatest signing for such remarkable consistency in doing the basics to a tee. They don’t make full-backs like him anymore: imperious and unflinchingly reliable, he barely laid a toe out of step in 12 years at the top.

Ferguson trusted the Irishman with his life - and rightly so.

39. Edwin van der Sar

Edwin van der Sar had to wait 13 years between Champions League titles. In between, he wrote his name as a Prem legend.

The Dutchman was a regular at Juventus before joining newly promoted Fulham in a shock 2001 move. Four seasons later, Manchester United came calling, Alex Ferguson ending a six-year wait for the reliable stopper he had been hunting since Peter Schmeichel’s exit.

The prototype for the sweeper keeper, Big Edwin is best remembered for his 'Van der Czar' heroics in Moscow to win Manchester United the 2008 Champions League – but a record 14 consecutive clean sheets between November and February led the Red Devils to Premier League title glory a season later. He was evergreen.

38. Cesc Fabregas

The boy who changed everything for Arsene Wenger.

Arsenal were built on towering pillars at Highbury, 6ft-plus colossuses who would bully and batter – but after a 15-year-old from La Masia trained in the shadows of the Invincibles, Wenger pivoted to a more continental style of play.

When Patrick Vieira led the Gunners out for Champions League nights, the team lacked some of the spark that they were bursting with at the weekends. Fabregas, however, became the fulcrum of a more diminutive side who would slice through opponents – and in the Premier League, he had the drive, the guile and the grit to take Big Pat's mantle and snatch the armband at just 21.

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He may well have become one of the greatest-ever to never win the Premier League title, but for a left-turn to Chelsea under Jose Mourinho. There, Fabregas was reborn as a wise sage from deep in midfield, conducting the orchestra. He even had gas in the tank to win a second title under Antonio Conte, and in his second spell in England, produced some of the most majestic midfield performances that Stamford Bridge had ever seen.

One of the greatest minds the league had ever seen.

37. Yaya Toure

The 6ft 2in powerhouse, who had resented playing at centre-back in Barcelona, was moved into his natural midfield domain – frequently, as the most advanced man.

Alongside Silva’s subtle artistry, Toure’s impressive passing range, tackling and box-to-box bursts helped to take Mancini’s talented team to another level. In his second campaign, the Ivorian was at the heart of City’s first-ever Premier League title – his sixth assist of the season teed up Pablo Zabaleta’s opener during the nail-biting 3-2 final-day win over QPR.

Two years later, he'd score 20 league goals for City's second title. In their third, he'd be reborn as a no.6 under frenemy, Pep Guardiola. You simply can't tell the story of the club without a long and lavish chapter dedicated to Toure, who inspired stadiums full of raised arms during his and his brother's iconic chant.

36. Tony Adams

Three statues of players are dotted around the Emirates Stadium. Two of them are dedicated to footballers who changed the landscape of the English game, in Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp.

Tony Adams was a master of a very different kind. An expert in defending and a once-in-a-generation leader, he was the heartbeat of an Arsenal side that won two titles pre-Premier League with one of the most watertight backlines English football had ever seen.

The England man battled with addiction in the 1990s but fittingly, it was Adams who sealed the 1998 title in Arsene Wenger's first full season, bursting from the back to cap off a magnificent move. His celebration, arms outstretched, was the pose chosen to be cast in bronze. He's Mr Arsenal.

35. Son Heung-min

Whether out wide or up front, left foot or right, whether Tottenham were fighting for a title or not, Son Heung-min has always been the very definition of maintaining a level.

The smiley South Korean may never get the plaudits he properly deserves, either. Never winning a title will do that – but Son is simply one of the greatest finishers that the league has ever seen. The speed and incision with which he's hurt just about every defender he's faced has made him one of the best attackers in European football for the best part of a decade, and he's truly underrated.

The best Asian player in the Premier League's illustrious history. It's not even close.

34. Alisson

He'll forever be hailed as the missing piece that turned Liverpool from challengers to champions – but Alisson Becker is far more than that.

Liverpool only shelled out for the best. In Virgil van Dijk, they paid top dollar for a once-in-a-generation defender. In Alisson, they may well have signed the most complete goalkeeper that the league has ever seen.

He's elite with his feet but has dug the Reds out of more scraps than anyone could count with his ability in one-on-ones. Alisson is the prototypical modern ball-player with the shot-stopping grit of a classic custodian, not just helping Liverpool to titles but keeping them in the race for European football during tougher spells, with his monster performances (and that goal against West Bromwich Albion).

And it may well take until he leaves these shores for us to truly appreciate just how good he's been. He stands tall alongside any goalkeeper in the division's history.

Broadly speaking, the first generation of the Premier League was defined by Peter Schmeichel. The second came to be Petr Cech's, while Alisson has been the goalkeeper to beat, three decades into the league. That's where he ranks.

Giorgi Mamardashvili arrives in 2025 to fight for the spot between the Anfield sticks – but we've got a feeling there's life left in Ali yet. He simply cannot be beaten that easily.

33. Andy Cole

Cole’s shock £7m switch to Old Trafford in January 1995 had Newcastle fans seething with manager Kevin Keegan. The striker had scored for fun at St James’ Park, including a stellar 34-goal 1993/94.

Predictably, Cole hit 93 more league strikes for the Red Devils, bagging five titles over seven full campaigns. He would at one stage be only second to Alan Shearer's 260 Premier League goals – before Messrs Kane and Rooney surpassed him – yet Cole didn't take a single penalty.

While the history books are quick to remember the Treble at Old Trafford, Keegan on the steps of the Milburn Stand and a bromance with Dwight Yorke for the ages, it's often forgotten that post-Red Devils, Cole played for five more clubs. A figure of longevity, as much reliability – and one of the 90s' most fearsome forwards, for sure.

32. Jamie Vardy

Jamie Vardy was the most expensive non-league player ever when he joined Leicester City from Fleetwood Town. Eyes were raised when it was reported that the fee could rise to £1.7m for the new Fox in the box.

Like so many of Leicester's golden team, he's been an absolute bargain. He simply is Leicester City: apologies, Mr Lineker.

From his caffeinated masterclass against Manchester United in 2014 in a 5-3 thriller to netting 11 games in a row en route to the most unlikely of Premier League titles; from winning the Golden Boot to taking Leicester into multiple European campaigns, Vardy has surely by now become the club's greatest-ever servant. He's perhaps the best late bloomer the nation has ever seen: and he plays with an energy like he's making up for lost time.

Arsenal tried to snare Vardy, aged 29, as a short-term option in 2016, but were rebuffed in their approach. That he'd have almost another decade at the top is staggering – and he'd never even played top-flight football until he was 27.

A nightmare to play against, with the career that everyone dreams of.

31. David Silva

Slight, short, foreign: would Silva be able to cope in English football?

So pondered the pundits when City coughed up £24m for the Valencia man in 2010. A masterful performance as City gubbed Manchester United 6-1 at Old Trafford early on in his City career convinced anyone still sceptical. “The best individual display I’ve ever seen,” Micah Richards later told FFT.

‘Merlin’ dropped jaws with his effortless displays for a side on the ascent, and proved the fulcrum of four league titles under three managers. They all adored him, but none more than Pep Guardiola, who converted Silva into a tempo-setting no.8, to dictate traffic for City's Centurions.

Without Silva, the modern history of the Sky Blues looks very different indeed.

30. Didier Drogba

Chelsea spent big on Didier Drogba in 2004. Little did they know they were essentially buying a master key for every final for the next decade.

The Ivorian embodies the Abramovich-era Blues. Both physically elite and mentally resilient, he was an ace card in the Blues’ biggest games, but a flat-track bully as well. Drogba became the prototypical Mourinho forward who inspired a tactical change to lone frontmen in English football, and every Chelsea striker since has had to measure up to his lofty standards.

Yes, we all remember the Champions League final heroics and the sun-spangled Wembley afternoons. But Drogba was an elite Premier League forward, too, as the focal point for Chelsea's first two titles, before one of the Blues' finest-ever individual seasons in 2009/10, when the striker netted 29.

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He even had time for a fourth Premier League crown, returning home to west London in 2014 in his twilight – and taking his customary no.11 jersey.

Oscar gave it up willingly. Who else would command such respect? He's a legend of London.

29. Eden Hazard

To look at Eden Hazard by the numbers is somewhat disappointing. He never scored a knockout goal in the Champions League, went almost a whole season without rippling a net for Chelsea and his heatmaps were hardly burning with the red-hot, box-to-box energy of Blues mate N'Golo Kante.

But to view him through that lens is to deprive yourself of solid gold amazement.

Hazard was a far more mercurial type. Give him the ball and he'd conjure something from nothing; give him the occasion and he'd make it all about him in the best possible way… or, famously, Leicester City in 2016, when he stepped up to stop Tottenham from winning the title.

But Hazard wasn't just one of the most beautiful footballers of his generation to watch. The languid jog neglects to remind you that the Belgian was central to Jose Mourinho's last title win in English football, then Antonio Conte's.

Hazard was a magician of the very highest order, a footballer that shone brightest in a golden generation at international level and who delivered joy in English football that few others could match.

28. Gareth Bale

Bale went 24 Premier League matches without a win for Tottenham, stretching from his bow in August 2007 through to September 2009. Four years after that first win, he was the planet’s most expensive player.

The Welshman’s evolution from skinny left-back to world-class attacker culminated in an explosive 2012/13 – one of the greatest individual campaigns in English football – in which he scored 21 league goals. At his dazzling best, Bale was about pure power, able to cut in and smash the ball almost through the net.

He won everything in the game and delivered on the biggest stages time and again. But watching Bale at Spurs was special: he could light up a moment like no one at the time and few have bottled that kind of excitement in the history of the league. He was inevitable.

27. Erling Haaland

Yep. Already.

Erling Haaland scored 36 goals in his first season in English football, smashing the record for most goals in a campaign… whether 38-game or 42-game. He is still the only Golden Boot winner to have ever netted over a goal a game in a Premier League season.

Haaland followed his heroic debut term with another Golden Boot, scoring 27 goals at a canter, and will likely become the fastest player to 100 in Premier League history. After signing a bumper deal at the Etihad Stadium, even Alan Shearer knows the Scandi superhero is coming for the all-time record.

Staggeringly, he's only 24 years old. Even by the crudest calculations, remaining in Manchester until he's 33 will see him surpass Wor Al by a hundred goals – allowing, of course, for half a season off at some point or another.

We've never known numbers like them. Yes, he's been in the Premier League for two-and-a-half seasons at the time of writing. Yes, others have scored more and spent more time in this league to cement statuses as legends of the Premier League. Yes, Erling Haaland could decide he's retiring tomorrow, to go into modelling, shampoo commercials full-time or simply because Pep Guardiola decides to decommission him because it's no fun having the most prolific robot in world football leading your line anymore.

And he would still find himself on this list. He's already left his indelible mark on English football.

26. John Terry

John Terry would simply decide games. Whether he was putting in last-ditch blocks to save his goalkeeper from having to make a save or chipping in with goals at the other end.

Two facts confirm such. The most stringent defence that the Premier League has ever seen conceded just 15 goals, in 2005/06, with Terry at the heart of the backline, leading the likes of Petr Cech and Ricardo Carvalho. Meanwhile, Andres Iniesta has fewer league goals than Mr Chelsea – despite playing considerably higher up the pitch.

“John was a massive figure at Chelsea,” Michael Ballack told FourFourTwo. “It’s important at a club that you have a captain who leads by example, and we had that in John.”