EPL Golden Boot Odds: Will Someone Knock Off Erling Haaland?

With the Premier League season coming to a close, the title race isn't the only thing up for grabs. The Golden Boot race for top scorer is really close and could easily come down to the final day of the season.

Currently, there are three players who have a realistic chance to win the award. Things have changed a lot in the last few weeks, and one name in particular has jumped into the race.

Keep in mind that there are no tiebreakers for the Golden Boot, and players will share the award if they are tied in goals.

Here are the EPL Golden Boot odds via the soccer odds at FanDuel Sportsbook:

EPL Golden Boot Odds

Erling Haaland (-180)

Last year's winner of this award, Erling Haaland has been the favorite in this race for most of this season. He set the record for most goals in a Premier League campaign last year with 36 in 35 matches.

His total is down to 20 in his team's first 33 games, of which he's appeared in 26. He has five games remaining, with all of them likely mattering. Manchester City are in a fight for the title with Arsenal, and it could go down to the last game.

The fixtures left for Haaland in the league are generally pretty favorable. With matches against West Ham, Fulham and Wolves remaining, he will face three of the bottom seven defenses in terms of expected goals (xG) allowed, according to FBRef's xG model.

Haaland himself has underperformed his xG this season by 3.6 goals. This is a major downturn from last season, when he overperformed it by 7.6.

With Haaland playing on a Man City team that will be a favorite in every match for the rest of the season, he's tough to bet against in this market. He won't be rotated since City need to win every game, and he will also take their penalties.

However, the -180 number isn't too appealing for me, especially since he doesn't even have the lead all to himself at the moment.

Cole Palmer (+340)

When we looked at this market back in January, Cole Palmer wasn't even on the radar. A recent goal explosion has put him in the conversation to win the Golden Boot. Now, he's tied with Haaland for the lead.

Palmer didn't even join Chelsea until September 1st, making his debut in Matchweek 4. There have been a ton of moving parts at Chelsea over the past few seasons, but Palmer seems to be the one who has hit the ground running and not looked back.

We have to address the elephant in the room with Palmer -- penalties. He has scored nine of his 20 league goals from the spot this season. Converting all of his penalties are the reason he's in the race.

Chelsea have six matches remaining -- one more than Manchester City. However, this is only an advantage if Palmer plays in all of them, and he didn't appear in the most recent league match against Arsenal.

With the Champions League out of sight and likely the Europa League, as well, Chelsea don't have much to play for this season. That could make them more likely to rest Palmer moving forward.

Palmer may have just 14.9 xG, but if he starts all six of Chelsea's remaining games, it's not crazy to bet on him to outscore Haaland for the remainder of the season.

Ollie Watkins (+700)

In his fourth season with Aston Villa, Ollie Watkins has already set a career high with 19 Premier League goals.

He's been one of the most consistent goal scorers in the league, appearing in 33 league games this term. That makes his goals-per-game ratio much worse than Palmer's and Haaland's.

Villa have only four matches remaining. That's one fewer than Man City and two fewer than Chelsea.

Unlike his two competitors, Watkins is not the designated penalty taker for Aston Villa. He hasn't taken a spot kick all season long. That could change if he needs a goal to win this award at the end of the season, but Villa are also in a battle to make the Champions League. If Villa haven't been comfortable with him taking one throughout the season, that might not change unless they are involved in a game that's out of hand.

Watkins has been in great form all season, and he needs to outscore Palmer and Haaland by just one the rest of the way to earn a share of the award. It's not impossible, but I'd like an even bigger number on him than +370 considering he has the fewest remaining games.

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