Better Together (Part 3)

The final part in our look at the best ever Premier League attacking combinations.

Better Together (Part 3)

Concluding our series on the most deadly attacking combinations in Premier League history, today we take a look at those who have dominated over the last decade or so. These are the players who have put defences on notice and have worked together to propel their teams forward and score bagfuls of goals in the process.

Previously we looked at (mostly) duos from the 90s and early 2000s but as we have mentioned before, football has evolved over time. Attacking partnerships are now not necessarily made up of two strikers but can also involve wingers and attacking midfielders. There are also far more tactical options where some teams don’t actually play an out and out striker at all but rather employ a False 9 to allow others to attack around them.

The Premier League is a far different place than when it started in 1992 but what has always remained the same is that teams require goals to win games. Players who score are still very hot properties and these are some of the best.

Wayne Rooney and Robin Van Persie (Manchester United)

Wayne Rooney has been part of this list before as part of a previous combination but realistically could be listed as a member of three or four. His sustained period at the top with Manchester United showed his consistency as a player but the parts around him changed over time.

When Robin Van Persie decided to join in 2012 he was already proven in the Premier League having scored 96 goals for Arsenal. Both he and Rooney at that point should have been at the peak of their careers and success came straight away in winning the league title in their first season together with Van Persie scoring 26 goals and Rooney 12.

Unbeknownst to the pair, this would be Manchester United’s last league title to this point and Sir Alex Ferguson left the club that summer. A period of rebuilding began but Van Persie and Rooney continued to find the back of the net. United struggled in finishing 7th but Rooney hit 17 league goals and Van Persie backed him up with 12 despite suffering from injuries.

United improved somewhat in 2014/15 and both players achieved double digit hauls but injury again hit the Dutchman, causing him to miss almost 2 months. At the end of the season he would leave to join Fenerbache as United continued to try and find a new way forward but the partnership, particularly in that first season, can definitely be considered to have been a success.

Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge (Liverpool)

For a season in 2013/14, Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge were absolutely unstoppable. At points throughout the season, the pair were so dominant that their tallies were being compared to that of entire teams.

Suarez took all the major plaudits, and possibly rightly so, with incredible performances throughout the season such as his four goal haul against Norwich in the December. He scored 31 goals in 33 games that season as Liverpool came as close as they had to winning the title for a very long time.

However, it is often forgotten that Sturridge scored 21 league goals himself, including vital ones in 1-0 wins at the start of the season when Suarez had been banned for biting. He played a fantastic foil to the Uruguayan and chipped in with some assists as well as goals.

They were ably assisted by the likes of Raheem Sterling, Philippe Coutinho and Steven Gerrard as well but the new SAS were definitely the leaders. Unfortunately for Liverpool, Suarez ended up joining Barcelona and Sturridge’s career would be affected by injuries but for that one season at least they were brilliant.

Sergio Aguero and David Silva (Manchester City)

This was one of those more unconventional partnerships that wasn’t a pair of strikers but rather one striker and another player who would assist him as a winger, attacking midfielder or from slightly deeper that just seemed to work.

Silva had joined the club from Valencia in 2010 and Aguero joined a year later, just as City were really starting to take off. He played a crucial part in them winning their first Premier League title that season, including scoring the timeless winning goal deep into stoppage time in the very last game.

These two combined for 29 league goals during their time at the club which is currently equal third on the all time list. Aguero was the main goalscorer of the two, in fact he is in the top 5 Premier League scorers of all time, but Silva loved an assist (and also often a goal too).

Over the course of 9 seasons before Silva left for Real Sociedad, this partnership clearly just came to understand each other. It was one of those rare instances in football where each seemed to just know what the other was thinking and was ready to provide as needed. No wonder they won 13 trophies, including 4 league titles, during their time together.

Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez (Leicester City)

Vardy and Mahrez combined to help steer Leicester City towards one of the biggest fairytale stories of all time when they won the Premier League title in 2016. The two had just about managed to help the Foxes survive the season before by putting together a great run of games and the form carried on all through the title year.

Vardy had 30 goal involvements (24 goals and 6 assists) while also setting a new Premier League record by scoring in 11 matches in a row. His pace and lethal finishing meant all defences were wary of him and he became the most feared striker in the land. This was utterly remarkable for a player who just 4 years previously had been playing non-league football for Fleetwood Town.

Mahrez was no slouch either, chipping in with 28 goal involvements of his own (17 goals and 11 assists), not bad for a winger. His story was almost as impressive as that of Vardy, having signed for only £450,000 from French Ligue 2 side Le Havre in 2014 with no real goalscoring pedigree.

The two came together as part of a perfect storm and made history. They both stayed the following year to play in the Champions League for Leicester, reaching the quarter finals, before Mahrez eventually broke up the partnership in 2018 to go on to further glory with Manchester City. It will always be the 2015/16 season that they are most remembered for though.

Harry Kane and Heung-Min Son (Tottenham Hotspur)

This duo currently hold the record for the most combined goal and assists for each other in Premier League history. They have come together to score or produce 47 goals with Son scoring 24 of those to Kane’s 23. The closeness of those stats show just how reciprocal this partnership really was.

What is more staggering is the fact that during their 8 years together, alongside other fantastic players such as Dele Alli and Christian Eriksen amongst others, Spurs never won a trophy. This pair did however produce many electric moments for fans and certainly knew each other’s play inside out.

Coming together when Son joined from Bayer Leverkusen in 2015, Kane was initially the far more dangerous of the duo, finishing as the Premier League Golden Boot winner whilst the Korean scored only 4 league goals. In fairness though, throughout his Tottenham career, Son had been deployed right across the front line whilst Kane was always a pure striker.

Since then though, until this season, Son has never failed to hit at least 10 league goals, scoring a career high 23 in 2021/22, while Kane continued to be incredibly consistent, winning the top scorer accolade a further two times. Unfortunately, the lack of trophies eventually proved to be the end of the pairing as Kane moved to Bayern Munich in search of greater success. The memories will last forever though.

Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino (Liverpool)

These three helped to rewrite the rulebook on what a strike partnership could be and drove their team back to glory in the process. Essentially a False 9 flanked by two attacking wingers, it was the understanding and interplay between this trio that made them so great.

Bobby Firmino was the first to join Liverpool in summer 2015, just before Jurgen Klopp’s revolution began in the October of that year. Klopp moved Firmino from an attacking midfielder into the False 9 position to facilitate more attacks. He scored 10 league goals that season.

The following season he was joined by Sadio Mane and the year after the trio was completed when Mo Salah arrived. In the 2017/18 season, they did not take long at all to work out how to support one another. Salah stole the headlines with 32 league goals but all three scored at least 10 as Liverpool finished 4th in the league but also made the Champions League final.

Success continued as over the next two seasons the trio inspired Liverpool on to winning the Champions League and also the Premier League title for the first time in 30 years. The three players combined for an incredible 92 goal involvements. Mane broke the partnership in 2022 by moving to Bayern Munich and Firmino left a year later but Salah is still going strong, although hasn’t yet found the same understanding with others around him.

Kevin De Bruyne and Erling Haaland (Manchester City)

Erling Haaland is called the robot for a reason. A goal scoring machine who has an innate ability to find the back of the net. However, as shown this season, even he will struggle to score if he is not being provided with the opportunities. The mixed form and injuries of Kevin De Bruyne has had a big part to play in this as the pair had previously been great together since the big man debuted in 2022.

Haaland has scored a ridiculous 84 goals in 94 matches in that time and many of those goals have been created by his Belgian midfield partner. De Bruyne has an ability to pick out the right pass at the right time and Haaland’s scoring instincts ensure that he is usually in the right place to finish those chances off. The relationship is somewhat reciprocal though as the big Norwegian has shown that he is able to be provider too.

Together they have helped to drive City towards two more Premier League titles and also their first ever Champions League win, although De Bruyne had to leave the final early due to injury. Haaland certainly hasn’t quite found the same relationship consistently yet with any of City’s other creative players.

As the only duo on this list that is still active, it will be interesting to see how this partnership continues to develop. That, however, will depend on whether they are given the chance to do so as it seems that De Bruyne may not actually be a huge part of Pep Guardiola’s revamp at City.

Over the course of three articles, we have seen how attacking partnerships have evolved over the 33 years that the Premier League has existed in that name. It will be interesting to see how this changes further in the future or whether, as is often the case, trends come back around again.

What is certain is that goalscorers will always need someone to provide them with chances. In that sense, players will always be better together.