Daniel Sturridge has highlighted three strikers in the Bundesliga who might be ideal targets for Premier League clubs across the coming transfer windows, with a number of high-profile teams expected to be on the lookout for a No.9 soon.
Speaking on Monday Night Football ahead of the wild Tottenham vs Chelsea fixture, former England international Sturridge - who netted eight times for the Three Lions and played for Man City, Chelsea and Liverpool at the peak of his powers - was asked by ex-Reds teammate Jamie Carragher who the next-in-line attackers might be, outside of the game’s current elite.
Carragher suggested that the biggest teams in Europe didn’t necessarily have top-end centre-forwards at this time, or if they did they were already into their 30s, meaning there will soon be an excess of demand for goalscorers which didn’t immediately seem to be in plentiful supply.
While Sturridge acknowledged Kylian Mbappe was the current king, the PSG star is rumoured to be Real Madrid’s top target for next summer, leaving him unattainable for almost everybody else - so it was to the top flight in Germany that Sturridge turned to name three attackers with a combined 27 league goals between them already this term.
“Mbappe is the No.1! Victor Osimhen is probably the next one, we’ve seen what he can do, the goals he scores, the pace, the tenacity and the finishing. I very much like him,” Sturridge said.
“But [Serhou] Guirassy is second in the scoring charts now in Germany behind [Harry] Kane, [Victor] Boniface at Leverkusen, [Maximilian] Beier who is playing in Germany as well.”
Guinea international Guirassy currently leads the line for Stuttgart and has 14 goals in just eight Bundesliga matches - scoring at a rate of one every 46 minutes after an explosive start to the campaign. He was the league’s top scorer until this weekend, as he missed out through injury while Kane plundered a hat-trick for Bayern Munich against Dortmund.
The 27-year-old impressed at Rennes in Ligue 1 until his loan and eventual permanent move to Stuttgart and has a reported release clause in his contract of only around £15.5m.
Meanwhile, 22-year-old Boniface is thriving as the main striker for league leaders Bayer Leverkusen, scoring seven in ten games under Xabi Alonso after signing this summer from Belgian club Union St. Gilloise. He made his senior international debut for Nigeria earlier this season and was joint-top scorer in last season’s Europa League, along with Marcus Rashford.
A long-term deal at the BayArena perhaps makes him unattainable in the short term, but Boniface will attract plenty of attention if he keeps up his wonderful performances which have also seen him claim five assists already this term - and score two in three games in Europe.
Finally, German 21-year-old Beier has scored six in eight starts and two sub appearances in the league this season, a rapid and powerful front man with an eye for the spectacular at Hoffenheim. The under-21 international is in his first full campaign in the top flight after a two-year loan with Hannover in the second tier.
