In his two full seasons in England so far, Erling Haaland has monopolised the Premier League Golden Boot award, netting a divisional record 36 goals in his first campaign in 2022/23 and following it up with another 27 last term.
The Manchester City striker is currently on track to claim the prize for a third successive year, having already found the net 12 times since August, leaving him two clear of the next most prolific player, Mo Salah.
The Egyptian is no stranger to collecting this particular prize, having done so on three previous occasions (once outright, twice as a joint-winner), with Bryan Mbeumo and Chris Wood next in the current standings with eight goals each.
The 1bet live betting odds would indicate that Haaland is the favourite to claim the Premier League Golden Boot once again in May, but can anyone at Liverpool potentially deprive him of that individual honour this season?
If anyone in the top flight is to pip the Norwegian for the Golden Boot, it’s probably Salah, who’s currently the division’s eighth-highest scorer of all time on 167 goals (eight behind Thierry Henry and 10 short of Frank Lampard).
The Egyptian’s brace in the 3-2 win over Southampton in the Reds’ last match meant that he’s now scored in nine of his team’s 12 league games so far this season, in contrast to Haaland stockpiling 10 goals in City’s first five matches but netting just twice since then.
That incredible consistency from the 32-year-old gives him every chance of catching the Norway international and potentially ousting him as the Premier League’s top scorer in 2024/25, much like how Liverpool have a plausible chance of dethroning Pep Guardiola’s team as champions if they can maintain their imperious form.
If it’s not Salah who brings the Golden Boot back to Anfield in six months’ time, the likeliest candidate to do so is Luis Diaz.
The Colombian has some ground to make up on Haaland, with his five-goal tally less than half of what the Norwegian has managed so far, but the 27-year-old’s overall return for the campaign shows that he’s a player in scintillating form.
He has nine goals in all competitions, and he put Bayer Leverkusen to the sword earlier this month with a sensational hat-trick at Anfield in the Champions League.
Curiously, he hasn’t scored in the Premier League since his double against Bournemouth on 21 September, but we’ve often seen players turn comparative famines into feasts by enjoying a hot streak of form and making up for lost time.
Diaz is probably an outsider for the Golden Boot just now, but he’s shown across the campaign as a whole that he seems capable of pulling himself firmly into the race for that prize if he can replicate his heroics against Xabi Alonso’s side in domestic action on a more regular basis.
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