[S1:E8] The Man With The Golden Boot

Ali Maxwell spies some interesting opportunities amongst the top-scorer markets.

Ali Maxwell

The Championship Golden Boot race still feels like the start of the Grand National. There are 19 players on either 3 or 4 goals after six rounds of fixtures, and Ryan Hardie has his nose in front on 5. I believe it chucks up a few interesting opportunities for us at this stage of the season.

Joel Piroe is at the top of the market, best price 6/1, and you can understand why. He has scored three in three since moving to Leeds, looks at home in Daniel Farke’s system, and has a sturdy goal return over the last two seasons (22 and then 19 in a mid-table side).

Pre-season this market was dominated by Leicester and Southampton strikers. For The Foxes, the situation still seems unclear, with Jamie Vardy, Kelechi Iheanacho and Patson Daka are all still at the club. Vardy and Iheanacho have shared the starts thus far, and while Iheanacho looks marginally more dangerous, Maresca’s system so far seems to generate more shots for the wide forwards and the attacking #8s as the strikers. 

Southampton’s Adam Armstrong and Che Adams have four and three goals respectively, and at 16/1 Adams now appeals more than Armstrong at 8/1, given he is the starting striker with Armstrong playing more of a number 10 role. But Southampton are struggling to create meaningful chances for their strikers.

Ryan Hardie has started well, but Argyle generally rotate their strikers so much that it’s hard to imagine him getting the amount of minutes needed to maintain his current hot streak, and you have to go back to 2013/14 (Ross McCormack, Leeds) for a Golden Boot winner that came from a bottom half team, which Argyle look likely to be. There is another chunk of names around the 20-40/1 mark, none of whom appeal too much, but there are two names that really catch my eye.