“Still My Favourite…” Paul Merson Names His Number One Candidate To Win This Season’s Golden Boot

“Still My Favourite…” Paul Merson Names His Number One Candidate To Win This Season’s Golden Boot

Sky Sports pundit Paul Merson believes Tottenham striker Harry Kane will beat the likes of Liverpool duo Darwin Nunez and Mo Salah in the race for the Golden Boot.

There has been a lot of hype around Nunez and Manchester City’s Erling Haaland after their high-profile arrivals in England, but the former Arsenal star Merson thinks Kane will score more than both of them:

“Harry Kane is still my favourite for the Golden Boot and he is the benchmark for Erling Haaland and Darwin Nunez. You win the Golden Boot by scoring against the bottom-half teams, not by scoring 15 goals against the top-four sides. You get your hat-tricks against the struggling teams in January and Kane will be playing every game. I don’t see Haaland doing the same as City want to win the Champions League and with Liverpool that front three can change very quickly. Even Mohamed Salah has been on the bench.”

Merson’s reasoning for discounting Salah, in particular, is rather puzzling. The Egyptian international is barely rested in the league due to his supreme fitness and that has helped him win three Golden Boots during his five seasons in English football.

The 30-year-old will also have another advantage over the likes of Kane this campaign, as he won’t be going to the World Cup. While a good number of Premier League players will be toiling away in the heat of Qatar, Salah will be resting up. He will, therefore, be very fresh for the second half of the season.

David Tully

David Tully

David has worked as a football reporter for the last fifteen years. Having started as an intern at Snack Media, he then went on to become a freelancer, working on various different sites. At the start of 2023, he took up his current role as content writer for National World's Football News Network.