The new Premier League season starts on Friday, with Liverpool hosting newly promoted Norwich.
The Reds showed on Sunday that they are likely to chase Manchester City very hard, as they did last year. But we favour the defending champions to hold on their crown – their strength in depth is impressive and manager Pep Guardiola is a serial winner. That said, City are trading around 1/2 to win the title, so not much to gain there!
Instead we’re going to double Manchester City as champions with our pick for leading Premier League goal scorer.
What changes this year is the introduction of VAR to adjudicate on penalty decisions. All the evidence so far suggests VAR tends to lead to more penalties being awarded, so this becomes important in our thinking.
City’s Sergio Aguero is likely to take the spot kicks when he plays, but he is his 30s now so how much will he play? Mo Salah at Liverpool is another obvious choice – he won the crown two years ago and shared it with teammate Sadio Mane and Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang last year. But Liverpool do tend to share their goals around, as evidenced by Mane’s appearance, so we’ll pass.
Instead we’ll side with Harry Kane. The Spurs striker takes penalties, will play every game (unless injured) and has shown his pedigree in the past by claiming this award in 2016 and 2017.
Recommendation: Manchester City to win the Premier League and Harry Kane to be top scorer, 1 pt, at 9/1, William Hill
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