The New Zealand striker scored 14 goals for Nottingham Forest last season.
“To get double digits as a striker in the Premier League consistently is unbelievably rare,” All Whites great Ryan Nelsen told the New Zealand Herald. “It just doesn’t happen.
“You are in a certain echelon of player. It’s a credit to his perseverance, from when he started out, to be in this situation.
“What he is doing is one of the most difficult things in football. It’s the hardest league to score goals in, you’re up against the best defenders and goalkeepers in the world. I don’t think people realise what he has achieved and what he is still achieving.
“He gets important goals – they are needed. It’s not the fourth goal in a 4-0 win.
“You can see it in the British media; they really respect what he has done. Strikers can do it for a couple of years but he has done it consistently and it’s not a fluke. Especially when your club is down the bottom. The pressure is on, it’s intense when you are down there and he delivered.”