"Sergio Aguero will depart English football later this year with his place secure among the greatest of modern goalscorers. To surpass Thierry Henry as the most prolific overseas striker is an outstanding achievement but, just as whenever Harry Kane passes some landmark or other, the ultimate reference point for such achievements has become badly distorted.
Football was rebranded rather than invented in 1992 and there is no record that has been more comprehensively erased from the collective consciousness than that of England’s leading top-flight goalscorer.
But facts are facts and, whatever the BBC Match of the Day credit might routinely accentuate, Alan Shearer is actually fifth on the real list. Wayne Rooney, meanwhile, is joint 21st while Aguero, who did score another 74 goals in La Liga, just creeps narrowly inside the top 40. And Kane, who should keep surging up the list, is currently back in 73rd - one goal behind Matthew Le Tissier and Peter Beardsely on 161.
This might all matter most to those with a particular statistical thirst, but there is a certain knock-on. Poor old Jimmy Greaves, who proudly tops the list with 357 top-flight goals, had to wait until earlier this year for even an MBE. It was 50 years after he played his last season in the First Division with West Ham United. Contrast that with Kane who picked up his MBE two years ago with 240 fewer goals or Shearer, with his CBE, various doctorates and statue outside St James’ Park.
In some senses, Greaves is still the lucky one. Most moderately informed football fans at least have a passing appreciation for his stature as the greatest of all British goalscorers. Yet what of the other names above Shearer in the list? Local folk heroes but, for the wider football loving world, largely anonymous.
So, in brief, there was Steve Bloomer, a legendary figure at Derby County whose great physical strength derived from his work as a blacksmith. He was the First Division’s top scorer five times and, having become a coach in Berlin after returning in 1914, was held prisoner in Germany during the First World War. It was not until 2009 that a bust of Bloomer went up outside Pride Park.
Next comes Dixie Dean, perhaps Everton’s finest player, whose strike-rate surpassed even Greaves and who also scored more than 30 goals in both the old Third and Second Divisions. Bill Shankly was old enough to see Dean play and asserted that he “belongs to the company of Beethoven, Shakespeare and Rembrandt".
Sergio Aguero is set to leave Manchester City at the end of the season with his place in the history books assured. And then we come to Gordon Hodgson, a remarkable South African-born Liverpool striker who also opened the bowling for Lancashire. He is still third among Liverpool’s all-time highest scorers, with more than double the goals of Mo Salah.
This might all seem like another world but, when you study the list, the spread of eras is actually striking. These are not records which are now out of reach and from another time. Indeed, the almost identical respective strike-rates of Kane and Aguero (0.68 and 0.67) are just fractionally worse than Greaves on 0.69 and actually better than Shearer, Hodgson or Bloomer.
As well as Greaves, it is also noticeable that the exceptional domestic feats of post-war goalscorers like Ian Rush, Geoff Hurst, Tony Cottee, Denis Law and Nat Lofthouse have become comparatively forgotten. None of this to withhold acclaim for Aguero. It is just to provide context and say that we should never forget the truly exceptional feats of men like Dean, Bloomer and Greaves, whose all-time tally for goals across the ‘big five’ European leagues was actually only recently broken by Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.
As for Kane, who is still only 27 and actually just capable still of reaching those ultimate records, there is no reason to lower the bar. But it is not Shearer who should be the target."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2021/03/31/jimmy-greaves-dixie-dean-true-reference-points-sergio-aguero/