Ranking the Premier League's all-time greatest super subs

ByAlex Bysouth

BBC Sport senior journalist

Mikel Arteta may be attempting to rebrand them "finishers" but there's only one phrase in the footballing lexicon to sum up today's focus: super subs.

Yes, we're looking for those players renowned for making a devastating impact off the bench, those guaranteed game-changers a manager turns to when in desperate need of a goal.

First, an honorary mention for some who missed out, such as one-season wonder Adam le Fondre, who holds the record for the most goals off the bench in a single Premier League campaign - five of his eight came in a three-game spell in January 2013.

Hernan Crespo boasts the best goals-per-game ratio but his six in 16 substitute appearances for Chelsea represents a small sample size, likewise ex-Norwich and Leicester forward Mark Robins with five in 14 outings as a replacement.

To make the all-time top 10 Premier League super subs, players need to have consistently delivered throughout their careers, providing goals and assists.

So here we go, I've ranked mine below - you can have your say in the comments, too.

10. Theo Walcott

Theo Walcott, replaced on 168 occasions, holds the record as the most subbed off player in Premier League history. Yet it's his impact coming on to the pitch we're interested in here.

Bursting on to the top-flight scene as an explosive teenager, the flying forward was often used by Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger to stretch defences with his pace and movement - a lactic acid-inducing sight for flailing full-backs.

The England international pieced together an impressive substitute CV throughout his Premier League career.

No-one has more than Walcott's 14 assists as a sub - Ryan Giggs and Marc Albrighton are level - while he also scored 10 goals as a replacement across his time with the Gunners, Everton and Southampton.

It puts him fourth on the list for overall goal contributions off the bench.

9. Victor Anichebe

This was a toss up between Victor Anichebe and Divock Origi, with both forwards contributing exactly half of all their Premier League goals as a substitute.

Ex-Everton, West Brom and Sunderland striker Anichebe edges it having notched a couple more - a tally of 13 placing the former Nigeria international in joint-eighth on the all-time list - while he also chipped in with five assists off the bench.

Roman Pavlyuchenko was also unlucky to miss out - 45% of his 20 Premier League goals came as a substitute for Tottenham.

8. Daniel Sturridge

There's a good case for Danny Welbeck, who as the only current player in the top three, with 19 goals, still has time to catch those above him.

Welbeck was a goalscoring sub at Manchester United and Arsenal but perfected the art on the south coast, with 12 of his tally coming during six years with Brighton.

The 35-year-old is now at Chelsea but - with apologies to Danny - there is another former Blue whose stats demand a place on this list.

Daniel Sturridge has two fewer substitute goals then Welbeck but has scored a slightly higher percentage of his overall Premier League tally as a sub - 22%.

The former England man, who played for Manchester City, Chelsea, Bolton, Liverpool and West Brom in the top flight, was good for an assist, too.

In fact, when you take his total goal contributions of 24, he provided at a more prolific rate than every substitute in Premier League history - bar Edin Dzeko and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

Richarlison matches Sturridge for minutes per goal contribution, but with eight fewer the Brazilian, perhaps harshly, misses out.

7. Olivier Giroud

A World Cup and Champions League winner, one of the few trophies Olivier Giroud hasn't got his hands on is the Premier League title despite a knack for scoring important goals off the bench.

The Frenchman is second on the all-time substitute scoring list, accounting for 21 of his 90 top-flight goals - that's almost a quarter - with only Dzeko, Solskjaer and Javier Hernandez boasting a better minutes-per-goal record as a sub.

Giroud honed his ability to make a late impact at Arsenal and Chelsea, making 103 substitute appearances in total across 10 seasons in the Premier League.

6. Tore Andre Flo

Good feet for a big man. Tore Andre Flo was a menace for Premier League defenders not merely because of his tall, gangly frame but for the silky touches the Norwegian often showed with his giant boots.

Flo scored 34% of his 38 Premier League goals as a substitute - the eighth-highest ratio for those with 20 top-flight goals or more, while he is also joint-eighth overall for goals from a substitute.

The first of those came just three minutes into his Chelsea debut in 1997, and it was with the Blues he enjoyed his best Premier League output before a later stint at Sunderland.

Having also provided three assists as a sub, he ranks fifth for minutes-per-goal involvements, contributing to his side scoring once every 78 minutes on average when used off the bench.

5. Javier Hernandez

The Little Pea. Small in stature but a giant headache for tiring defenders.

Of all players in Premier League history to have scored at least 10 goals as a substitute, only one - Sergio Aguero, and it feels a stretch to call the competition's sixth-highest scorer a super sub - has netted at a more prolific rate than Javier 'Chicharito' Hernandez.

He has 19 in 78 sub appearances, a rate of 0.24 per game, with 36% of all his Premier League goals coming after he started on the bench - predominantly for Manchester United but also later in his career at West Ham.

He netted on average every 88 minutes when used as a replacement.

Indeed, only Jermain Defoe and Giroud have scored more goals as a substitute than the Mexican, while he sits among a leading group of seven - including Defoe - who have scored five match-winners as a sub.

4. Edin Dzeko

Aged 40, Edin Dzeko is still scoring goals for Bundesliga outfit Schalke. His record as a substitute in the Premier League, however, remains among the greatest.

Dzeko netted 50 Premier League goals for Manchester City, with more than a quarter of those coming as a substitute.

Only Aguero and Hernandez, of players to have scored at least 10 goals as a sub, have better goals-per-game ratios than him. When you break it down to minutes per goal, Dzeko is level at the top with Solskjaer - scoring on average every 83 minutes.

He stands alone once you add assists, too - 17 goal contributions during 56 top-flight games as a replacement means Dzeko returned on average every 63 minutes.

The most important of those goals, of course, came in stoppage time against QPR on the final day of the 2012 season. Everyone remembers the Aguero moment, but it was substitute Dzeko's header two minutes earlier that levelled the game.

3. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is perhaps the most iconic of super subs, largely for that Treble-clinching night in Barcelona.

The baby-faced Norwegian, having started Manchester United's FA Cup final win over Newcastle four days earlier, came on in the 81st minute of the Champions League final to toe-poke a stoppage-time winner after Teddy Sheringham had equalised against Bayern Munich moments earlier.

It capped a vintage few months for Solskjaer's super sub legend, having bagged four in the final 10 minutes of an 8-1 win at Nottingham Forest in the February.

Sticking strictly to his Premier League output, Solskjaer is joint-fifth on the all-time substitute scoring list with 17, netting 19% of his 91 top-flight goals off the bench, with a ratio of 0.2 goals-per-game as a sub.

His rate of scoring on average once every 83 minutes off the bench is a competition high that can only be matched by Dzeko. The caveat is, like Dzeko, Solskjaer was playing for one of the most dominant teams in the land.

2. Nwankwo Kanu

Nwankwo Kanu's impact as a substitute was felt immediately at Arsenal.

Coming off the bench on his debut, the Nigerian forward collected a throw-in meant for a Sheffield United player - after the opposition kicked the ball out for an injury - and crossed for Marc Overmars to score. It sparked a famous FA Cup rematch.

In the Premier League, he was just as ruthless. Kanu, who joined from Inter Milan having earlier won the Champions League at Ajax, made 56 of his 119 top-flight appearances for Arsenal as a sub.

When you take in spells at West Brom and Portsmouth, too, he netted 17 goals off the bench - 31% of all his top-flight strikes - which places him joint-fifth on the all-time substitute scoring list.

But he was almost as prolific at creating them, making 12 assists as a substitute - a tally only bettered by three players in Premier League history.

1. Jermain Defoe

OK, goals are currency and Jermain Defoe has netted more as a substitute than any other Premier League player.

Remarkably, the 24 he scored when coming on all came in different fixtures - which, of course, means he has also scored in more games as a substitute than anyone else. And, as mentioned, a league-high five of those were match-winners.

He scored six times as a substitute in his debut Premier League season, earning West Ham a 3-2 win at Ipswich with his first top-flight goal, and netted for the final time in the competition 17 years later after coming on to rescue Bournemouth a stoppage-time point at Watford.

Simply put, throughout his career, Defoe - also England's highest-scoring substitute with seven goals - was the ruthless finisher a manager wished to see when anxiously glancing at their bench in need of a goal.