Take away the pocket dynamo Mo Salah, and what do you notice about the Premier League top goalscorer charts from the 2024/25 season? There’s the 6ft 4in Alexander Isak in second place behind the Egyptian, with the likes of 6ft 5in Erling Haaland and 6ft 3in Chris Wood also featuring prominently in the Golden Boot reckoning.
In the Champions League, Serhou Guirassy – standing 6ft 2in – jointly led the top goalscorer standings, with Harry Kane (6ft 2in) and Robert Lewandowski (6ft 1in) also in the running. Football, like fashion trends, moves in cycles. For a while, nippy little strikers were the de rigueur – desired for their inability to link up play, run the channels and be a general, albeit vertically-challenged, nuisance.
But if those goalscoring feats mentioned above are anything to go by, the dedicated followers of football fashion are turning to the target man striker in a bid to crack the code of the modern game. And the transfer business in the summer of 2025 certainly lends credence to such a notion…
Big Spending on Tall Men
It was a record-breaking transfer window for the Premier League in the summer of 2025, with the collective £3.1 billion outlay weighing in as the largest spend in a single window ever. A healthy chunk of that was splashed out on target men strikers, with Isak’s protracted move from Newcastle United to Liverpool for £125 million also breaking British transfer records.
The Magpies swooped to sign the young German, Nick Woltemade, as Isak’s replacement. Evidently, their scouting department has a type – Woltemade stands 6ft 6in tall and has been variously dubbed ‘Woltemessi’ for his skills and the rather less imaginative ‘Big Nick’ for his sky-scraping height.
Elsewhere, Arsenal ended their long wait for a number nine style striker by capturing Viktor Gyokeres, the 6ft 2in marksman who had been prolific in Portugal with Sporting Lisbon. Not to be outdone, Manchester United completed their summer of spending with the capture of Benjamin Sesko, the 6ft 5in target man formerly plying his trade at RB Leipzig.
The problem with fashion is that, often, many of us jump on board the bandwagon even if the trend doesn’t suit us – leading to embarrassment after the fact as we peruse photos of ourselves years down the line. But will the target man striker suit those clubs that have signed them? And why would they favour a tall frontman in the first place?
The Changing Face of Modern Football
Eyebrows were, and continue to be, raised by the deployment of Erling Haaland at Manchester City. For all his physical prowess, the Norwegian contributes very little to City’s measured, metronomic style of play. He is, instead, tasked with playing on the last line of defence and being a menace in the penalty area – having scored 88 goals in his first 100 games, a Premier League record, you’d suggest it’s a tactic that has been successful.
Pep Guardiola resolutely does not use Haaland’s height to his advantage, and neither did Eddie Howe make the most of Isak’s statuesque qualities at Newcastle United in 2024/25. They ranked just 14th out of the 20 EPL teams for long passes played, and a relatively lowly sixth for crosses into the penalty area – once again, it’s almost as if Isak’s height was a coincidence, rather than an edge to be maximised.
Maybe Liverpool, who ranked sixth for long passes and fifth for crosses in Arne Slot’s first season as manager, will make more of Isak’s physicality. It was noticeable from Gyokeres’ heatmap while playing for new club Arsenal against Leeds United that he will be more than a head to aim at. He dropped into a number ten style role, linking with midfield, as well as receiving the ball in wide areas.
Isak and Gyokeres are examples of the modern striker: somebody capable of offering all dimensions of forward play, whether that’s coming short, running the channels out wide or getting into the box and finishing chances.
Mind you, Chris Wood is very much in the Haaland profile of playing between the posts: after three rounds of Premier League matches in 2025/26, his Nottingham Forest side led the way in crosses played – get the ball out wide before trying to hit the head of the big Kiwi seems to be their main route to goal.
In 2024/25, Wood spoke of his admiration for boss Nuno Espirito Santo’s style of play. “He has come in and put the emphasis on getting balls into the box, getting people into the box,” he said. “We love deliveries, love crosses. He has worked on that on the training pitch and thankfully it has come to the fold.”
Manchester United too will no doubt be looking to make the most of Sesko’s aerial prowess: at the start of 2025/26, they top the Premier League charts for most long passes attempted. Perhaps one of the most rewarding things for a neutral spectator of the Premier League is the sheer diversity of tactics and playing styles on show. And that, very clearly, is manifested in how teams with a target man striker go about their business.
Using Their Head
You don’t need to be a detective to know who scored the most headed goals in the Premier League in 2024/25. Wood had double the tally of the next best, notching eight times with his head. Amongst the group on four headed goals were messrs Haaland and Isak, alongside Arsenal’s sometime makeshift striker Mikel Merino, who stands 6ft 2in.
While football’s tastemakers had decided some time in the 2010s that tiki taka and miniature forwards were en vogue, now it seems that the fashionistas have deemed that ‘getting it into the mixer’ is the hot trend for 2025/26.
Often in football, it’s sides that diametrically oppose the status quo that can reap the most rewards. Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp heralded a tactical revolution in the English game when they joined Manchester City and Liverpool – now, we see countless teams, at all levels, trying to ape them and play out from the back and ‘break the lines’ with vertical passes… with some, or little, success.
Doing things differently can yield excellent results when opponents are expecting a certain style that they can easily counteract. You can draw a line from the modern day Nottingham Forest, who so nearly qualified for the Champions League in 2024/25, to the Stoke City teams of the 2010s, who continually punched above their weight with an agricultural playing style.
The homogenisation of tactics in football offers opportunities to those willing enough to break the mould. But when everyone has a tall striker to aim for, what will the beautiful game’s next fashion trend be?
