We’re so back. The 25/26 Premier League season is rattling along now, with a familiar name already roaring into a significant lead in the race for the Golden Boot.
Erling Haaland is bidding to reclaim his crown after he and everyone else got Mo Salahed last season, and it’s so far so good with the Big Norwegian currently boasting a whopping lead over his nearest yet also very distant challengers.
Here are the actual 10 current favourites for the big shiny shoe, according to oddschecker.com, with each player’s current goal tally in brackets.
6=) Phil Foden (7)
Has regained his lost scoring touch in recent weeks.
6=) Jean-Philippe Mateta (7)
Another very solid return for one of the Premier League’s most reliable strikers.
6=) Richarlison (7)
A wonderfully chaotic option for Spurs and a man seemingly doomed forever to score spectacularly memorable goals in spectacularly memorable disasters. Which is really just unimprovably Tottenham of him.
6=) Bryan Mbeumo (6)
Well look at that: An actual Manchester United player scoring actual Premier League goals. He’s not going to win, obviously, but even making it into the top 10 feels like some kind of achievement.
6=) Viktor Gyokeres (5)
The Proper Striker to finally deliver the title to Arsenal? Not on the evidence of that opening-day performance v Man Utd or the first half against Leeds but definitely possibly of the second half. There was no sign of him adding to that total v Liverpool but he did score v Nottingham Forest and Burnley.
Arsenal’s title challenge is in textbook shape, but there hasn’t been that much contribution from the striker they apparently needed to drag them over the line.
4=) Nick Woltemade (7)
Given he was the wrong profile of striker for Newcastle entirely, bought in a performative panic after everyone else had said no, and given that Newcastle haven’t really been any good this season, it’s to Woltemade’s huge credit that he’s escaped a seemingly certain floppy fate. But he’s not going to win the Golden Boot, is he?
4=) Antoine Semenyo (9)
We’ve given ourselves a headache trying to work out whether his imminent move to Man City makes him more or less likely to somehow reel in Haaland. Probably moot. But a fine player having a fine player and about to reap the rewards.
2=) Igor Thiago (11)
Surely the man best placed if something horrendous were to befall Haaland as he has actually scored a whole lot of Premier League goals. How the f*** do Brentford keep pulling this off?
2=) Hugo Ekitike (8)
Has been impressive in a Liverpool team that has not, and Alexander Isak’s unfortunate injury does rather clear a path for a player already outperforming his more expensively-acquired team-mate.
1) Erling Haaland (19)
Looking to reclaim his crown after last season’s ‘struggles’ and made – as he generally does – a rapid start to the season with a couple of goals on the opening day as the familiar focal point of a new-look Man City side. It’s an absurd lead at this stage, really, with his own nonsense compounded by none of the other most likely contenders – with all due respect to your Semenyos and Thiagos – doing anything all that compelling to challenge him.
