Following Liverpool’s Community Shield triumph over Manchester City, the post-match talk has surrounded this season’s Premier League Golden Boot race.
Top contender Darwin Nuñez of course grabbed a crucial late goal for Liverpool to cement his sides' 3-1 win.
Erling Haaland meanwhile missed a number of glorious chances for Pep Guardiola’s team, sparking conversation over which club has the best striker heading into the new season.
City and Liverpool, however, aren’t the only Premier League sides with top fowards.
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Arsenal have poached Gabriel Jesus from Manchester City, who's been scoring freely during pre-season and looks to be in some of his best career form to date.
Meanwhile, Spurs have once again retained the services of Harry Kane who has arguably been the best out and out centre-forward in the Premier League for a while now.
Former Arsenal midfielder Paul Merson has weighed in with his opinion on which Premier League striker will be walking away with the Golden Boot next May.
Despite the arrivals of Haaland and Nuñez, Merson believes Kane will continue to be English football’s most prolific striker this term.
Writing for the Daily Star, Merson revealed Kane is his ‘favourite for the golden boot’ labelling him the ‘benchmark for Erling Haaland and Darwin Nuñez.’
Merson went onto explain his reasoning behind the prediction.
Merson wrote ‘You win the Golden Boot by scoring against the bottom-half teams, not by scoring 15 goals against the top-four sides.’
The former England international for-sees Harry Kane starting every week for Spurs regardless of who the north London outfit lineup against.
But he doesn’t ‘see Haaland doing the same as City want to win the Champions League’ and the Liverpool front three ‘can change very quickly’ so for Merson, Nuñez won’t always play from the start.
It’s a bold claim. Kane has score more than 20 Premier League goals just once in the last 4 campaigns.
But under Antonio Conte for a full season, the England captain could get back to his very best form.
Topics: Harry Kane, Liverpool, Paul Merson, Tottenham Hotspur
Robert Worthington