Wednesday 13th August 2025

In Across the Leagues today:

• Premier League 2025/26 – starts Friday night…
• Top Goalscorer – key stats…
• Playing the prices – and the markets… 

Your 5-step guide to picking the Premier League Top Scorer…

The Premier League kicks off this weekend. Today we’re taking a deep-dive into the Top Goalscorer stats. Consulting numbers and trends that can aid us in our quest for value this season…

Premier League - Top Goalscorer

Here are the five key stats that I’ve identified in my research:

• KEY STAT: Favourites don’t always win. In fact, the pre-season outright favourite has only paid out as the Top Goalscorer twice in the last 9 Premier League seasons (Erling Haaland on both occasions)...

2024/25
Pre-season favourite: Erling Haaland @ 8/11 – X
Winner: Mo Salah

2023/24
Pre-season favourite: Erling Haaland @ 8/13 – W
Winner: Erling Haaland

2022/23
Pre-season favourite: Erling Haaland @ 11/4 – W
Winner: Erling Haaland

2021/22
Pre-season favourite: Harry Kane @ 10/3 – X
Winner: Mo Salah & Heung-Min Son (Dead Heat)

2020/21
Pre-season favourite: Mo Salah @ 5/1 – X
Winner: Harry Kane

2019/20
Pre-season favourite: Harry Kane @ 4/1 – X
Winner: Jamie Vardy

2018/19
Pre-season favourite: Harry Kane @ 11/4 – X
Winner: Three-way tie – Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Sadio Mane, Mo Salah

2017/18
Pre-season favourite: Harry Kane @ 3/1 – X
Winner: Mo Salah

2016/17
Pre-season favourite: Sergio Aguero @ 7/2 – X
Winner: Harry Kane

It can pay to take on the favourites, and play the bigger Each Way prices instead…

From the above list, the likes of Vardy (20/1) and Heung-Min Son (40/1) both went off at attractive odds – and as profitable picks for us. With Salah a winner for us last season, backed at a top price of 12/1.

What’s more, with bookies paying 1/4 odds 1-4 places Each Way in the Premier League top scorer market. There is always the chance of getting on a ‘surprise package’ to land a share of the spoils…

For example, last season’s joint 4th-place (Each Way tied place) finishers Chris Wood and Bryan Mbeumo both went off as 100/1 shots. They go off at half the odds this time (50/1 each in general). The trick is to latch onto a player before they make a big splash in the Premier League scoring charts…

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• KEY STAT: Debutants may take time to adapt. Haaland is the only player to have won the Golden Boot outright in his debut season in the English Premier League having arrived from abroad. The Man City superstar being the exception to the rule…

That newcomer stat is certainly one to keep in mind before throwing your cash at this summer’s headline signings…

For example, Arsenal’s new forward Viktor Gyokeres is priced as the 13/2 (7.5) second-favourite in the current 2025/26 ante-post market for Premier League Top Goalscorer. The 27-year-old Swede was the runaway top scorer in the Portuguese Liga for Sporting last season, scored well for Coventry in the English Championship before moving to Portugal, and has also been on the books for Brighton in the past… but he has yet to play in the Premier League.

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• KEY STAT: You don’t have to play for the champions. The Top Goalscorer winner has come from the team that won the Premier League just three times in 12 years. Although it has happened three times in a row…

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• KEY STAT: It pays to take penalties. Over the last 9 seasons in the Premier League, 85% of the players that finished in the Each Way places in the Top Goalscorer markets scored at least one penalty during the campaign…

Here are the goals and penalty stats recorded by the highest-scoring men in the Premier League, going back over the last nine campaigns:

Premier League

TOP GOALSCORERS – top 4 scorers/ Each Way places:

Player (Club and League Position) – Goals – Penalties converted

Premier League 2024/25:
Mo Salah (Liverpool, 1st) – 29 goals – 9 pens out of 9
Alexander Isak (Newcastle, 5th) – 23 goals – 4 pens out of 4
Erling Haaland (Man City, 3rd) – 22 goals – 3 pens out of 4
Bryan Mbeumo (Brentford, 10th) – 20 goals – 5 pens out of 6
Chris Wood (Nottingham Forest, 7th) – 20 goals – 3 pens out of 3

Premier League 2023/24:
Erling Haaland (Man City, 1st) – 27 goals – 7 pens out of 8
Cole Palmer (Chelsea, 6th) – 22 goals – 9 pens out of 9
Alexander Isak (Newcastle, 7th) – 21 goals – 5 pens out of 6
Phil Foden (Man City, 1st) – 19 goals – 0 pens out of 0
Dominic Solanke (Bournemouth, 12th) – 19 goals – 2 pens out of 3
Ollie Watkins (Aston Villa, 4th) – 19 goals – 0 pens out of 0

Premier League 2022/23:
Erling Haaland (Man City, 1st) – 36 goals – 7 pens out of 7
Harry Kane (Tottenham, 8th) – 30 goals – 5 pens out of 6
Ivan Toney (Brentford, 9th) – 20 goals – 6 pens out of 7
Mo Salah (Liverpool, 5th) – 19 goals – 2 pens out of 4

Premier League 2021/22:
Mo Salah (Liverpool, 2nd) – 23 goals – 5 pens out of 6
Heung-Min Son (Tottenham, 4th) – 23 goals – 0 pens out of 0
Cristiano Ronaldo (Man Utd, 6th) – 18 goals – 3 pens out of 3
Harry Kane (Tottenham, 4th) – 17 goals – 4 pens out of 4

Premier League 2020/21:
Harry Kane (Tottenham, 7th) – 23 goals – 4 pens out of 4
Mo Salah (Liverpool, 3rd) – 22 goals – 6 pens out of 6
Bruno Fernandes (Man Utd, 2nd) – 18 goals – 9 pens out of 10
Heung-Min Son (Tottenham, 7th) – 17 goals – 1 pen out of 1
Patrick Bamford (Leeds, 9th) – 17 goals – 2 pens out of 2

Premier League 2019/20:
Jamie Vardy (Leicester, 5th) – 23 goals – 4 pens out of 5
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Arsenal, 8th) – 22 goals – 2 pens out of 2
Danny Ings (Southampton, 11th) – 22 goals – 1 pen out of 2
Raheem Sterling (Man City, 2nd) – 20 goals – 0 pens out of 2

Premier League 2018/19:
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Arsenal, 5th) – 22 goals – 4 pens out of 5
Sadio Mane (Liverpool, 2nd) – 22 goals – 0 pens out of 0
Mo Salah (Liverpool, 2nd) – 22 goals – 3 pens out of 3
Sergio Aguero (Man City, 1st) – 21 goals – 2 pens out of 2

Premier League 2017/18:
Mo Salah (Liverpool, 4th) – 32 goals – 1 pen out of 2
Harry Kane (Tottenham, 3rd) – 30 goals – 2 pens out of 3
Sergio Aguero (Man City, 1st) – 21 goals – 4 pens out of 4
Jamie Vardy (Leicester, 9th) – 20 goals – 5 pens out of 6

Premier League 2016/17:
Harry Kane (Tottenham, 2nd) – 29 goals – 5 pens out of 6
Romelu Lukaku (Everton, 7th) – 25 goals – 1 pen out of 1
Alexis Sanchez (Arsenal, 4th) – 24 goals – 2 pens out of 3
Sergio Aguero (Man City, 3rd) – 20 goals – 4 pens out of 5
Diego Costa (Chelsea, 1st) – 20 goals – 0 pens out of 1

Over the last nine seasons in the Premier League:

• 8 of the 12 Top Goalscorer winners (including ties) scored 4+ penalties in a season (67%)
• 20 of the 41 placed top scorers converted 4+ penalties in a season (49%)
• 35 of the 41 players scored at least one penalty in a season (85%), and only 4 players didn’t take any pens at all
• 15% of the total goals scored by the players listed above came from penalties (141 out of 919)

Does that last stat sound familiar? Remember, in last month’s analysis for the English Football League, we noted that the historical figures for the Championship, League One, and League Two, show a 14% ratio for penalties as the percentage of goals scored by the men in the top scorer/ Each Way places.

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• KEY STAT: On average, a Placed Premier League Top Goalscorer plays for a team finishing in the Top 5, and he scores 22+ goals…

Those last-nine-seasons numbers tell us that:

• Average team league finishing position for a 1st-place Top Scorer = 3rd
• Average team league finishing position for a Top 4 Each Way place = 5th
• Average goals to be 1st-place Top Scorer = 25.9
• Average goals for a Top 4 Each Way place = 22.4

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Those five key stats in summary…

Premier League – Top Goalscorer:

• Favourites don’t always win. In fact, the pre-season outright favourite has only paid out as the Top Goalscorer twice in the last 9 seasons
• Debutants may take time to adapt. Only one player has ever won the Golden Boot outright in his debut season in the English Premier League having arrived from abroad
• You don’t have to play for the champions. The Top Goalscorer winner has come from the team that won the Premier League just 3 times in the last 12 seasons (although it has now happened 3 years in a row)
• It pays to take penalties. Over the last 9 seasons in the Premier League, 85% of players that finished in the Each Way places in the Top Goalscorer markets scored at least one penalty during the campaign. And 49% scored 4+ penalties
• Top 5 team, and 22 goals. On average, to get into the 4 Each Way places for a Top Goalscorer payout, the player comes from a team finishing in the Top 5 of the table, and scores 22 goals

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Here’s how the top of the Premier League 2025/26 Top Goalscorer market currently looks at Bet365. And remember - the transfer window is still open, too…

• 100/1+ bar

We’ll be hunting for Each Way opportunities…

With a good chunk of stats on our side there, we’ll be placing our first bets of the new Premier League season ahead of the weekend, with the first game taking place on Friday night (Liverpool v Bournemouth).

As ever, we’ll be looking to get behind one or two outsiders at tasty Each Way prices.

P.S
Want to get in touch? Email me at: oliver@spapublishinggroup.co.uk

Enjoy the football…

Best wishes,

Oliver Upstone

Across the Leagues