Born in the south east of Ireland, Simon put his life-long love of football to good use when he started a successful independent blog in 2010. That opened up an alternative route to a career in journalism, and having had work published across a number of sites and publications, Simon joined the staff at Spotlight Sports Group in 2018.
While the pursuit of major club honours and the Premier League title itself understandably takes centre stage, the race to be crowned as the division’s leading scorer often provides a fascinating sub-plot to the main event.
Last season, Leicester City’s veteran poacher Jamie Vardy was awarded the Golden Boot after he plundered 23 goals during the Foxes’ 2019/20 campaign.
The 33-year-old’s haul was the second lowest total of any Golden Boot winner since Dimitar Berbatov’s 20 goals for Man Utd landed him the individual gong in 2010/11.
Interestingly, the joint-trio of winners from 2018/19 – Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah – recorded the lowest winning goal total since the brilliant Bulgarian when they hit the net 22 times each.
As we enter the fresh 2020/21 season, the Premier League’s match-defining superstars will be aiming to outgun each other again, and below we’ve taken a closer look at the marksmen we think could hit the mark most often this term.
Click here for our entire 2020/21 Season Outright Predictions Schedule.
Premier League Top Scorer Odds
Mohamed Salah (Liverpool) – 5/1
Harry Kane (Tottenham Hotspur) – 11/2
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Arsenal) – 6/1
Segio Aguero (Manchester City) – 7/1
Timo Werner (Chelsea) – 9/1
Raheem Sterling (Manchester City) – 10/1
Marcus Rashford (Manchester United) – 20/1
Anthony Martial (Manchester United) – 20/1
Danny Ings (Southampton) – 20/1
Raul Jimenez (Wolves) – 33/1
Premier League Top Goalscorer Key Stats
- The Premier League Golden Boot winners, on average, have scored 24.7 league goals per season at a rate of 0.69 goals per game.
- Mohamed Salah’s 32 goal haul in 2017/18 is the highest number of goals scored in a 38-game Premier League season, while Harry Kane achieved the best goals-per-game rate with 0.97 in 2016/17.
- Thierry Henry has won the award a record 4 times, and is the only other player apart from Alan Shearer to win it in 3 consecutive seasons.
- The smallest goals tally to clinch the award was 18, which occurred in both 1997/98 and 1998/99 and was shared 3 ways in both seasons. The winners those years were Chris Sutton, Dion Dublin, and Michael Owen in 1997/98 and Michael Owen, Dwight Yorke, and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink in 1998/99.
- The winner of the Golden Boot is given £1,000 for every goal they score during the season, to be donated to a charity of their choice.
Premier League Top Goalscorer Favourites
Mohamed Salah (Liverpool) – 5/1
Mohamed Salah – one of the three joint winners from 2018/19 – wasn’t quite as his clinical best last season during Liverpool’s remarkably consistent run to the Premier League title, though the Egyptian’s final 19-goal haul saw him finish just four shy of Jamie Vardy’s Golden Boot winning total.
As a regular starter in a Reds team that plundered 80+ goals in each of the last two seasons, Salah should have ample opportunities to push through the 20-goal ceiling in 2020/21, and if the winger can wrestle full penalty kick taking responsibility away from James Milner, the 28-year-old might get the extra numbers he needs to take back his crown.
Harry Kane (Tottenham Hotspur) – 11/2
Tottenham Hotspur talisman and England captain Harry Kane starts the new campaign as the bookmakers’ second favourite to finish as the Premier League’s top scorer for 2020/21, however, an increasingly patchy injury record makes the 27-year-old a dangerous bet.
Over the last two Premier League campaigns, Kane missed a total of 20 Spurs fixtures due to a series of serious injuries – and his absence was reflected in his final tallies for the 2018/19 and 2019/20 seasons, which stood at 17 and 18 respectively.
Kane will be desperate to avoid a prolonged spell in the treatment room this term, though the centre-forward chances could also be hampered by Jose Mourinho’s defensive tactical outlook at Spurs, and less attacking impetus from the team would in turn lead to fewer chances to score for Kane.
FST’s Pick: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Arsenal) – 6/1
Having shared the Premier League’s leading scorer award in 2018/19, Arsenal’s remarkably consistent Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang missed out on the Golden Boot by a whisker in 2019/20, finishing just one goal behind Jamie Vardy in the campaign’s final throes.
Aubameyang, who scored 20 or more league goals in each of his last five seasons, finished 2019/20 in electric form, hitting the net nine times in 10 games, including both of the Gunners’ efforts in their FA Cup Final win against Chelsea.
The 31-year-old looks like he is thriving under Mikel Arteta’s instruction, and Auba looked razor sharp when he scored again in Arsenal’s Community Shield victory over Liverpool last month.
With Arsenal tipped to significantly improve on their 8th place finish from last term, Aubameyang’s chances of winning the Golden Boot should sky rocket while playing in a more robust, successful Gunners outfit, making him the outstanding choice in the market.
A fresh contender – Timo Werner (Chelsea) – 9/1
German international Timo Werner’s decision to sign for Chelsea this summer sparked an enormous reaction, especially after the rapid centre-forward had looks odds-on to join his compatriot Jurgen Klopp at Liverpool.
With a sparkling record of 95 goals in 159 Bundesliga appearances for his previous employers RB Leipzig, and a haul of 12 goals in 39 caps for Germany, Werner arrives at Stamford Bridge with plenty of pedigree, and the 24-year-old will also be serviced by a potentially devastating, new creative trident of fellow countryman Kai Havertz, ex-Dortmund starlet Christian Pulisic and Hakim Ziyech, who signed from Ajax earlier in the summer.
With so many new faces in the Blues top end, there is the possibility that things take some time to click, though Chelsea’s goal-scoring capabilities and Werner’s Golden Boot winning possibilities still look considerable.
Premier League Top Goalscorer Outsider Predictions
Over at bet365, they are paying 1/4 odds each way on up to four places in their Premier League 2020/21 Golden Boot markets, and that in turn opens up some cracking look possibilities in the outsider betting.
Danny Ings (Southampton) – 20/1
Danny Ings enjoyed the best season of his career to date in 2019/20, hitting the net a remarkable 22 times in a Southampton team that proved modest goalscorers overall.
Ings in fact, accounted for 43% of the Saints’ Premier League goals for the entire campaign, with 18 of the striker’s efforts Southampton’s first strikes in their respective fixtures.
Interestingly, if penalty kicks were taken out of the equation, Ings would have finished as the division’s leading marksman ahead of Jamie Vardy and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who both had their final totals fleshed out by strikes from the spot.
As the focal point of a Saints team on an upward trajectory under Ralph Hasenhüttl, Ings could well surprise some of his more high-profile counterparts again in 2020/21.
Raheem Sterling – 10/1
Manchester City flier Raheem Sterling posted his highest ever figures for an individual club season in 2019/20, ending the campaign with a hugely impressive 31 goals in all competitions for the Citizens.
20 of those goals were smashed home by Sterling in the Premier League, and it’s worth noting that the 25-year-old was the only player in the chart’s top six who didn’t hit a single effort from the penalty spot.
Having hit the 20 Premier League goal mark for the first time in his career last term, the continually improving England international will be targeting further improvement in 2020/21, and in a City team that rattled home 303 goals in the last three years, Sterling won’t be short on chances to shine.
Jamie Vardy – 14/1
Current Golden Boot holder Jamie Vardy might be a little insulted to find himself so far down the reckoning in the bookies’ pre-season prices, but having finished the previous season with just six goals in 17 appearances, you can see why the odds setters chose to push him to outside.
Vardy’s record in the Premier League over the past half a decade is a match for anyone’s however, and the 33-year-old will again lead the line of a youthful Foxes team that will be determined to prove their doubters wrong under Brendan Rodgers this season.
The veteran, holder of the league’s longest scoring streak, doesn’t need many chances to make his mark, and at 14/1, Vardy represents excellent value.
More FST News:
Premier League club by club guide part 1
Premier League club by club guide part 2
