Can Haaland or Lukaku overhaul Immobile and take Europe’s Golden Shoe?
The race to win this season's prestigious Golden Shoe intensified over the weekend as Romelu Lukaku gained ground on the likes of Ciro Immobile and Timo Werner.
Lukaku grabbed Inter’s fourth in a 4-2 Milan derby victory that sent the Nerazzurri back to the top of Serie A, but the Belgian still trails Immobile and Cristiano Ronaldo in the Capocannoniere standings.
The ex-Manchester United forward now has 17 goals and is on pace for his most prolific campaign since his final season at Everton when he bagged 25 in 37 matches.
Lukaku appears reborn in Italy and may well go on to surpass Ronaldo’s current tally of 20 goals in the next few weeks, although the next few games look tough for Inter on paper.
Immobile sits atop the standings for goalscorers in all of Europe at the moment, using the Golden Shoe’s weighted system of scoring.
His 25 goals for Lazio are worth 50 points, putting the Italian international six points clear of Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski in second place.
The Polish star also drew a blank on Sunday in the top-of-the-table Bundesliga clash with RB Leipzig but the fact that the German league play four fewer matches than the likes of Serie A and the Premier League could work against him.
Werner, who is understood to be a target for Liverpool this summer, similarly could not add to his 20-goal tally in a 0-0 draw at the Allianz Arena.
The one coming up on the rails to watch out for is definitely Erling Braut Haaland, who is currently just outside the top five on the list with 38 points.
The last time Erling Haaland played a full 90 minutes in the league without scoring was September 2018. https://t.co/ESj5q4qWob
— Kristan Heneage (@KHeneage) February 8, 2020
He scored 16 goals in Austria for Red Bull Salzburg before making a well-publicised switch to Dortmund in January, since when he has bagged an impressive tally of seven goals in four appearances.
His scoring rate is such that, even with just 13 games left in the Bundesliga, he could yet run those ahead of him on the list close for Europe’s top prize for goalscorers.
The Norwegian has been responsible for a stunning 39 per cent of Dortmund’s goals since he signed, a proportion that outweighs almost all of his contemporaries.
Lewandowski is close behind with 38 per cent of Bayern’s goals this season, but two players can boast even better ratios than Haaland when you factor in the amount of games played.
Ronaldo can lay claim to scoring 25 per cent of Juventus’ league goals this term, while Immobile, who also takes penalties, has hit 27 per cent of Lazio’s Serie A tally across the season.
