The Premier League Golden Boot race has been pretty much looking the same since the season started, where two kings reigned supreme for the most part of the 2023–24 season.
As of now, the Premier League title race is shaping up to be a neck-and-neck sprint to the finish line, and to the delight of SBOTOP football fans, the rest of the campaign will surely hold tons of Premier League 2024 highlights, given that the Golden Boot race is as tight as the title race!
To everyone’s knowledge, Erling Haaland currently leads all the prolific scorers in the Premier League with 16 goals. Despite missing some time thanks to an injury, no one in the Premier League has been able to overtake the 23-year-old as the leading goal scorer in the English top flight.
Haaland is the lone leader with 16 top-flight goals after 25 matchdays with a game in hand, but someone, a lad in Liverpool, might dethrone Manchester City’s No. 9 from the race, as he just recently returned from a lengthy spell on the sidelines after sustaining an injury in the AFCON. It’s none other than Liverpool’s main man, Mohammed Salah.
The Egyptian skipper currently boasts 15 Premier League goals, just one goal behind the race leader, Erling Haaland, despite missing almost a month’s worth of football action.
Now, with both Haaland and Salah back on the field for their respective clubs, can either of them pull away in the Golden Boot race? Will Haaland maintain his lead, or will Salah blaze past the Norwegian golden boy?
Mo Salah returns and immediately delivers
After suffering a hamstring injury during Egypt’s 2-2 draw with Ghana at the Africa Cup of Nations back in January 19, Mo Salah finally returns to action after a month-long rehab.
Liverpool marched to Brentford to get as many points as possible to fend off Arsenal’s threat to the top spot in the league standings.
The Reds immediately went to work and had the lead going into halftime. Mac Allister, Gakpo, and who else but Mo Salah scored one second-half goal apiece to secure the win for Liverpool and remain the Premier League leaders.
It seems like Salah hasn’t lost a step, scoring a goal and assisting on one to boot after being sidelined for one month of action.
Salah’s production for Liverpool is astronomical for their success, as Salah doesn’t only find the back of the net with ease, but he also consistently creates and orchestrates opportunities for his teammates.
The 31-year-old veteran boasts 15 Premier League goals, making him second in the Golden Boot race, and he has also managed to claim nine top-flight assists. He is currently tied with Brighton’s Pascal Groß and Wolverhampton’s Pedro Neto for third place in the Premier League Playmaker of the Season award.
Salah’s return to action for Liverpool came at the most opportune time for the Reds, as they’ve been perpetually pestered by Arsenal and Manchester City in the title race.
With plenty of football left to be played in the Premier League season, given his pace of production, it’s not unrealistic for Salah to have the most goals, assists, and the Premier League title once the season is done and dusted.
Can City’s goal-scoring machine win back-to-back Golden Boots?
Erling Haaland leads the entire English top flight with 16 goals, but his closest adversary, Mo Salah, has narrowed down the lead to just one goal.
But even with that being said, it would be extremely foolish to question Haaland’s goal-scoring capabilities and count him out of the race prematurely.
Manchester City’s lone striker won the Golden Boot award in the 2022–23 campaign, but this season, he’s a little off pace in mimicking or surpassing his winning performance, as he just has 16 goals in 19 appearances this 2023–24 campaign. But if you’ve been following Haaland in the past few seasons, you should know that the lad can score in bunches at a time.
Take his performance two weeks ago against Everton, where he scored two goals and singlehandedly carried City to a win, or his two-goal performance against Manchester United and Chelsea before he suffered a foot injury against Aston Villa.
Not to mention, Haaland is surrounded by a bunch of assassins who can score a hat-trick themselves on any given night. So the fact that the 23-year-old can still put up robotic numbers despite having multiple options to score as a team is a feat in itself.
Manchester City are still the Premier League 2024 odds favourites to win the title, and I personally think that their success as a team is directly proportional to Haaland’s success in the Golden Boot race.
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