Premier League 2016-17: Top Goalscorer betting preview

football betting tips -

I have just sent the second newsletter for today, Friday, it was also Part 2 of my 2016-17 Premier League notes, I looked at five markets and put up a selection in each, the "smallest" of which you can read below. In which I discuss the requirements to get involved in the top goalscorer market ..........

 

Premier League 2016-17:

Top Goalscorer

Looking at this market for the last five seasons for clues about the most likely winner, has thrown up some interesting stats and very narrow bands for anyone looking to feature in the top three. It is virtually certain that you need a minimum 20 goals to finish top three (all 15 players have at least that number) and all five winners scored between 25 and 31 goals, only one player (Wayne Rooney in 2011-12) notched more than 24 and did not win. All five winners played at least 31 games and no one has even won this award playing fewer than 30.

Only one of the 15 played in a team that finished outside the top 5 ( Suarez when Liverpool were 7th) and, as you might expect, 12 of the 15 finished in a Champions League position (top 4). It has been difficult , but not impossible for two players from the same club to do battle for the award, but for two strikers to play all season, which you pretty much need to do and both score north of 20 goals is a very big ask and with the EPL more competitive than ever is surely going to become increasingly rare and even more so, I would feel in the season following a European Championship or World Cup.

So, you pretty much have to start at least 82% of games, which means missing only the odd start, score a minimum 25 goals and play in a team which is likely to finish top 4.

You could argue that Jamie Vardy broke the mould last season, but at the end of the day he came up a goal short and his team were champions, although no one would have predicted them as winners 12 months ago, at least not without being laughed out of town.

If we look at the six big players in terms of teams and their main strikers .........

Chelsea have Costa and now Batshuayi , Liverpool would have Sturridge, Tottenham, Harry Kane and new addition Janssen, Arsenal ...Giroud and Sanchez, Manchester City .....Sergio Aguero, Man U.....Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

Diego Costa has played 26 and 28 games in his two seasons with the Blues, looks increasingly unhappy in London and now has significant competition for his role. Daniel Sturridge is, it has to be said , injury prone, has never played more than 30 games and has averaged 16 actual starts in the last six years , Harry Kane won the award last year , but will get pressure from Janssen and is coming off his first ever major international tournament and one where he was criticised and he is under real scrutiny, perhaps for the first time. Giroud has played 34+ games in 3 of his 4 seasons , but has never scored more than 16 goals and will split them with Sanchez, both could go close with a stellar season, but do need to up their contribution by 50% (which is huge) to win.

Sergio Aguero ticks all the boxes and if he had played just one or two more games last season, he would be gunning for a hat-trick of golden boot awards and if he plays 30 + games this season, it is close to impossible not to see him finishing top 3, but odds of 4.50 , whilst fair, hardly set the pulse racing. That leaves Zlatan at United and he would not have come to Manchester to finish his career had he not been given some assurances about playing and he will be kicking up a big stink if he doesn't start every time he is available, he is a good trainer and hard worker (all the world class players are) and is rarely injured and is coming off his best ever domestic season, albeit for a very dominant force, in a "weak" league. It is hardly original, but he or Aguero should be taking this award down come the end of 2016-17 and combined odds for either to win at circa 3.20 are not bad value at all, but I am going to stick with Zlatan to take the EPL by storm.

First up, I am hoping that he will take over penalties from Wayne Rooney, who with a 73% strike rate in the EPL is way behind the Swede who has a career strike rate of 88% and has taken far more, this is probably quite important as whilst United got very few last season, that was because they spent so little time in the penalty area and comatose LVG was half asleep on the bench, or writing his diary, whereas Jose Mourinho will be busy giving the match officials a hard time !

United are one of the biggest clubs in world football and simply cannot have another season like 15-16 , when at times they were incredibly boring to watch and Mourinho despite not exactly being gung ho, will want to upgrade both results and entertainment levels, the two have to go hand in hand.  Chelsea and Inter both scored more goals in their first season with the "special one" in charge than in their previous campaign and Real Madrid scored 102 La Liga goals (same as previous season) and 121 in his second year in charge, an all time receord for a team who have spent their history thrilling Europe with their attacking football. So it is certainly a little unfair to say that he will stifle attacking talent, he will make them tougher to score against and will play to their strengths, but that is on the front foot and they have to do so with greater speed (but that would he hard not to manage). Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Luke Shaw will provide the pace and width (in spades) that was lacking last season and Zlatan will be looking at the 32 assists that Mkhitaryan provided for Dortmund last season and salivating ! I cannot see how Ibrahimovic can play 30 games and not score 20 goals in this team and baring injury, or a major falling out with Mourinho, he has to go close. He has scored 229 goals in 300 Serie A/La Liga and Ligue 1 appearances in the last decade with a 76.33% strike rate and that number would pretty much give him 24-25 goals from 32 games.

2 units Zlatan Ibrahimovic to be top Premier League goal scorer 9.0-10.0 general quote.

 

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