Former Tottenham and Manchester United Bulgarian striker Dimitar Berbatov doesn’t believe that 2017/18 season Golden Boot winner Mohamed Salah will be able to win the award again.
After scoring 32 goals in the league last season, Egypt international Mohamed Salah became the record goalscorer in a 38-game Premier League campaign, winning the Golden Boot for the 2017/18 season, beating Tottenham’s Harry Kane.
His incredible form saw him collect a number of prizes including the PFA Players’ Player of the Year and the Football Writers’ Association’s Footballer of the Year and became the first ever player to win three Premier League Player of the Month awards in a season.
He also helped Liverpool finish fourth in the Premier League standings and reach the Champions League final.
However, the former Golden Boot winner Dimitar Berbatov eliminated Mohamed Salah from his list of topscorers competing for the Golden Boot for the 2018/19 season, as he believes the award will go to Kane.
“I think the top Premier League goalscorer will be Harry Kane,” Berbatov told BetFair. “It’s a tough call, there’s also Aubameyang because he had a solid first season in the league and will want to build that in his second season with a new coach.
“There’s Romelu Lukaku who performed well at the World Cup.
“Out of those three, I would have to say Kane. He had a tremendous World Cup campaign, will have even more confidence in himself and these aspects help a striker.
Following his stellar season with Liverpool and the Egyptian national team, Salah was linked with a move to Spanish giants Real Madrid. The former Chelsea player, however, has pledged his long-term future to Liverpool, with several reports claiming there’s no release clause in his contract, which tie him to the club until 2023.
The Premier League Golden Boot is an annual association football award presented to the leading goalscorer in the Premier League. For sponsorship purposes, it was called the Carling Golden Boot from 1994 to 2001, from 2001 to 2004 as the Barclaycard Golden Boot, and the Barclays Golden Boot (2005–2016). Since 2017, it is known as the Cadbury Golden Boot. In addition to the trophy, winners of the Golden Boot are usually given £1,000 for every goal they scored throughout the season to donate to a charity of their choice, although Robin van Persie was given £30,000 after scoring 26 goals in the 2012–13 season.
The Premier League was founded in 1992, when the clubs of the First Division left the Football League and established a new commercially independent league that negotiated its own broadcast and sponsorship agreements.The newly formed league had no sponsor for its inaugural season until Carling agreed to a four-year £12 million deal that started the following season, and it was simply known as the Premier League in its first year. As a result, the award was called the “Premier League Golden Boot” when Teddy Sheringham received the inaugural award in 1993 Originally consisting of 22 teams, the league contracted to 20 teams after the 1994–95 season; this reduced the number of games played from 42 to 38.
Thierry Henry has won the Golden Boot on four occasions, more than any other player. Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Dwight Yorkewere the first non-English and non-European winners, respectively, when they shared the award with Michael Owen in 1999.Alan Shearer is the only player other than Henry to win the award in three consecutive seasons.Phillips, Henry, Cristiano Ronaldo and Luis Suárez won the European Golden Shoe in the same season as the Premier League Golden Boot, with Henry achieving this on two occasions (2004 and 2005). Shearer, Hasselbaink and Van Persie are the only players to win the Golden Boot with two clubs.
Andy Cole and Shearer – with 34 goals in 1993–94 and 1994–95, respectively – scored the most goals to win the Golden Boot when the Premier League was a 42-game season, Mohamed Salah with 32 goals in 2017–18 holds the record for the current 38-game season, while Nicolas Anelka scored the fewest to clinch the award outright, with 19 goals in 2008–09. The all-time record for lowest number of goals scored to be bestowed the award, however, is 18 goals; this was achieved during the 1997–98 and 1998–99seasons, when the award was shared between three players both times. The latter season marked the last time the Golden Boot was shared until 2010–11,when Dimitar Berbatov and Carlos Tevez both scored 20 goals that season to tie for the award.Harry Kane recorded the highest goals-to-games ratio to win the award, scoring 29 goals in 30 games in 2016–17 for a rate of 0.97.