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Salah vs Kane: 2017-18 Premier League Golden Boot race

The 2017-18 Premier League Golden Boot was won by Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah, scoring a record 32 goals in a 38-game season, narrowly preventing Tottenham Hotspur’s Harry Kane from winning the award for a third consecutive season.

Kane’s 30 goals were the most the runner-up has ever scored in a 38-game campaign and would have been enough for him to win the prize in 19 of the previous 22 campaigns (sharing it 3 times).

However, Jürgen Klopp and Liverpool made one of the signings of last summer when they brought Mohamed Salah onto English shores from AS Roma.  The Egyptian international was coming off the back of a 15-goal season in Serie A in his 31 appearances from out wide.

Salah quickly proved José Mourinho and any doubters wrong with goal after goal in the Premier League – settling back into England with no problem at all, having failed to be given much of an opportunity at Chelsea between 2013-15 before he was sent to Italy, initially on loan, before Roma made the deal permanent.

The 25-year-old will be looking to take Liverpool one step further on Saturday when they face Real Madrid in the UEFA Champions League final.  The Reds are five-time winners of Europe’s most prestigious trophy whilst opponents Real Madrid are the record winners (12 times).

As for Harry Kane, who knows how many goals the England striker could have scored in Mauricio Pochettino’s side but for an ankle injury late in the season.  Although he only missed starting Spurs’ 3-1 win at Chelsea, perhaps he’d have netted more versus the likes of Stoke City, Watford and West Bromwich Albion; games where he looked rusty as he was getting back to full match fitness.

The 24-year-old is yet to win a trophy at White Hart Lane, or Wembley Stadium, for the North London club, and few would fancy his chances at this summer’s World Cup either.  The question mark that comes up season after season for Kane is whether he should leave Tottenham in order to pick up some trophies in his career.

Whilst time is still very much on his side, and that he is currently part of the best Tottenham team in the Premier League era, his name has been strongly linked to the likes of Real Madrid and Manchester United in recent times.  Harry Kane could quite simply walk into the starting lineup of any team in the world right now – but would Daniel Levy sanction a move?  Very unlikely, unless you want to smash the world record transfer fee, a few times over.

Harry Kane’s 30 goals this past season was a personal best for the England international.  20 of them came in open play and only two from the penalty spot.  He showed his ability with each foot by scoring 10 on his left, 13 on his right and six headers this past season, whilst Mohamed Salah was reliant on his lethal left foot that was responsible for 25 of his goals, cutting in from the right.

The Tottenham striker also opened the scoring on more occasions than his Liverpool counterpart – 11 times versus nine.  However, Mohamed Salah has one of the most impressive stats of the 2017-18 Premier League season in that he scored in 63% of the Reds’ games – an incredible 24 different matches!

These stats and more are summed up excellently in the below graphic I came across, produced by Betting.NET:

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