It would appear that the top four by the end of this season could very well be made up of the four clubs represented by these players.
Having researched this a little, with the emphasis on “little“, the evidence suggests that, in the main, the teams with regular twenty-plus goalscorers in their ranks are the ones which finish the highest.
Now it could very well be that Sadio Mané of Liverpool and Alexandre Lacazette of Arsenal also score twenty or more goals this season, but we think they will fall short of the other four.
Also, as far as the title goes, Arsenal and Liverpool currently concede far too many goals to be considered serious contenders.
A nightmare scenario for Arsenal and Liverpool would be a title race, including themselves, which was to be decided on goal difference because they would then lose it to any of the other four teams mentioned here.
To illustrate the fact, here is the current goal difference of the big six:
Manchester City – Scored – 21 – Conceded – 2 – GD 19
Manchester United – Scored 17 – Conceded 2 – GD 15
Chelsea – Scored 12 – Conceded 5 – GD 7
Tottenham Hotspur – Scored 10 – Conceded 5 – GD 5
Liverpool – Scored 12 – Conceded 11 – GD 1
Arsenal – Scored 9 – Conceded 8 – GD 1
So, as you can see, whilst hardly setting the world alight, Chelsea and Spurs are still some way ahead of Liverpool and Arsenal.
There was a chance that Arsenal would considerably improve their sorry goal difference when they welcomed West Bromwich Albion to The Emirates on Monday.
It appears, however, that the days of stubborn old man’s team scoring bagfuls of goals have been consigned to the history books. A 2-0 win was all they could muster. Still, it was an improvement on the 1-0 win they managed over Doncaster Rovers and at least Alexandre Lacazette scored another couple of goals!
So who is going to win the Golden Boot? Well, here’s the standings at present:
Sergio Agüero, Romelu Lukaku and Álvaro Morata all have six goals from six games played. Harry Kane, due to his inability to score in August, has four.
It is too simplistic to expect that they will carry on scoring at the rate of one goal per game because, obviously, there will be games when they don’t score and there will be others where they score two or three. So using a complicated formula which takes into account the fact that, for example, Manchester United haven’t faced any of the big six yet and these are the games when Lukaku is less likely to score, the final tally should be as follows, (Premier League goals only):
1. Harry Kane 28
2. Sergio Agüero 28
3. Romelu Lukaku 26
4. Álvaro Morata 23
These final positions are based on the assumption that the players suffer no injuries, no long suspensions and no loss of form resulting in losing their place in the team. There is also a special caveat for Sergio Agüero, who could still be dropped by Pep Guardiola even if he scores three goals per game for the next five games!
So there you have it. Remember, we have not rejoined the prediction game, these totals have been calculated using a scientific formula which, for obvious reasons, has to remain a secret otherwise the resultant winning bets would see the collapse of the world banking system as we know it.
If anybody is interested in how the goalscoring charts for the whole of the Premier League look then have a shufty here.
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 