Who will lead the Premier League in goals scored in 2022–2023? Although we don't yet know the answer to that question, we can provide you some data-driven options to think about. The players listed below are our picks for the Golden Boot. 

Haaland, Erling 

Manchester City has recruited one of the most sought-after players in world football to their roster for 2022–23, as if they weren't already terrifying enough after scoring a league-high 99 goals on their route to winning the title last season. 

Despite being only 22 years old, Erling Haaland has already scored 93 goals in the top division.  

At his former club Borussia Dortmund, he made 67 German Bundesliga appearances, accounting for 62 of those. 

Only Robert Lewandowski outperformed Haaland in the Bundesliga over his three seasons (2019–20 to 2021– 

Harry Kane 

Thierry Henry is the only player in Premier League history to win the Golden Boot award on as many as four occasions. The race is on between Tottenham Hotspur’s Harry Kane and Mohamed Salah to be the first player to match that tally, with both strikers now on three awards each. 

Kane won back-to-back Golden Boot awards in 2015-16 and 2016-17, but his only win in the last five Premier League seasons has come in 2020-21 when he topped the charts with 23 goals – one ahead of Salah. The England captain is also the only active Premier League player to have won a FIFA World Cup Golden Boot, with his six goals at the 2018 tournament in Russia. 

Son Heung-min

Son Heung-min took the limelight from team-mate Harry Kane in 2021-22, becoming the first Asian player to win the Golden Boot in English top-flight history. 

The Spurs forward shared the award with Mohamed Salah on 23 goals. However, none of those were penalties (Salah scored six of those) and he attempted 53 shots fewer than the Egyptian, converting shots at a rate of 26.7% compared to Salah’s ratio of 16.5%. 

Was Antonio Conte the secret behind the South Korean’s success in 2021-22? Well, Son’s scored 19 goals in 26 Premier League games under the Italian – only three goals fewer than his total under Jose Mourinho and in just over half the appearances (51 under the Portuguese). His minutes per goal average (117) and shot conversion rate (30.7%) are by far the best they’ve been under any coach in the competition at spuris

Gabriel Jesus 

Márcio Amoroso topped the Serie A scoring charts for Udinese in 1998-99, Ronaldo was the last to do it in La Liga back in 2003-04 for Real Madrid, PSG’s Nenê shared the Ligue 1 award with Olivier Giroud in 2011-12 and the Bundesliga top scorer in 2008-09 was VfL Wolfsburg’s Grafite. 

No Brazilian has ever won a Golden Boot award in the English top flight, let alone the Premier League era – could Arsenal’s summer signing Gabriel Jesus be the first? 

There’s little doubt that Jesus knows where the goal is. His average minutes per goal ratio of 107 is only bettered by six players to have played at least 2,000 minutes of Premier League football. 

Mohamed Salah 

Mohamed Salah has won the Premier League Golden Boot on three previous occasions, but he’s had to share the honours on the last two of those (2018-19 and 2021-22). Only in his first season at Liverpool in 2017-18 has he won the award outright. 

Since joining Liverpool in 2017-18, Salah has scored the most Premier League goals (118) and attempted the most shots of any Premier League player (678). Averaged out, Salah’s contributed just under 24 goals a Premier League season as a Liverpool player. That would have been enough to have won the Golden Boot in each of the last four campaigns. 

In the Premier League last season, Salah had the highest expected goals per 90 average (0.77), with only team-mate Diogo Jota (0.64) having a higher average than him (0.62) from non-penalty shots. Salah also led the league rankings for touches in the opposition box per 90 (11) and shots per 90 (4.5). Each of these metrics are vital for a player looking to win the Golden Boot.
Salah’s 23 goals in the Premier League last season came despite playing 2,963 of Liverpool’s 3,672 minutes (including injury time across all games) – that’s 80% of possible minutes on pitch. He missed two matches at the AFCON last season, and that may have been the difference between sharing the honour and taking it outright.