Erling Haaland has set the early benchmark in the 2025\u201326 Premier League Golden Boot race, combining a prolific start with Manchester City and a clear intent to reclaim the award. After back-to-back Haaland wins and Mohamed Salah returning to the top of the scoring charts last season, expectations were high for another duel between the two forwards. At present Haaland sits on 14 goals from 11 games and is operating at a remarkable rate. At this rate (1.27 goals per game), Haaland will beat his record from 2022\u201323.<\/p>\n
Behind him a group of opportunistic and improving forwards are hunting the prize. Brentford\u2019s Igor Thiago, signed as an Ivan Toney replacement, has shown a poacher\u2019s instinct with eight goals in 11 games. The Brazilian is not the facilitating presence Toney was, but his finishing has delivered returns for the Bees.<\/p>\n
A trio share six goals apiece after 11 matches. Jean Philippe-Mateta\u2019s exploits in south London earned him a long-awaited call-up to the French national team at the age of 28. A proper Barclaysman who arrived far too late to be officially labelled one, Mateta enjoyed an excellent scoring season in 2024\u201325 and notched his second Premier League hat-trick during Crystal Palace\u2019s dramatic 3\u20133 draw with Bournemouth in October.<\/p>\n
Danny Welbeck, now working under Fabian H\u00fcrzeler, had never reached double figures in a Premier League season until the coach arrived. After scoring ten times in the league for Brighton & Hove Albion last season, Welbeck looks poised to improve on that tally in 2025\u201326 and there have been whispers of an England recall after last featuring for his country in 2018.<\/p>\n
Antoine Semenyo has been a standout for Bournemouth despite a couple of quiet outings and a missed penalty in Bournemouth\u2019s 4\u20130 defeat at Aston Villa. The powerful, versatile winger has shown fierce striking ability from both feet.<\/p>\n
The recent history of the award underscores its competitiveness: 2024\u201325 Mohamed Salah 29; 2023\u201324 Erling Haaland 27; 2022\u201323 Erling Haaland 26; 2021\u201322 Son Heung-min & Mohamed Salah 23; 2020\u201321 Harry Kane 23. With Haaland\u2019s current form and a cluster of challengers close behind, the Golden Boot race remains one of the season\u2019s most compelling storylines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Haaland leads 2025-26 Golden Boot race: 14 goals in 11 games; Thiago eight, Mateta, Welbeck, Semenyo six<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4477,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[739,728,773,465,175,1056,172],"tags":[1162,801,1225],"class_list":["post-4478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bournemouth","category-brentford","category-brighton-hove-albion","category-crystal-palace","category-liverpool","category-man-city","category-epl","tag-analytics","tag-antoine-semenyo","tag-danny-welbeck"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}