Premier League Golden Boot: Updated Odds, Predictions After International Break

As we enter the final stretch of the 2018-19 Premier League season, the race for the Golden Boot is hotting up. 

Sergio Aguero leads the charge on 18 goals, but four players—including past Golden Boot winners Harry Kane and Mohamed Salah—are lying in wait just one goal behind.

Meanwhile, Aguero's Manchester City team-mate Raheem Sterling is lurking on 15 goals with an outside chance of winning the award.

Here's a look at the latest odds, and read on for predictions as to how the race might play out:

Golden Boot Standings, Odds

Sergio Aguero, Manchester City, 18 goals (6-4)

Harry Kane, Tottenham Hotspur, 17 goals (3-1)

Mohamed Salah, Liverpool, 17 goals (3-1)

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Arsenal, 17 goals (6-1)

Sadio Mane, Liverpool, 17 goals (10-1)

Raheem Sterling, Manchester City, 15 goals (25-1)

Odds courtesy of Caesars

Raheem Sterling Will Have a Career-Best Season

If there were any lingering doubts about Sterling's finishing, recent performances for club and country should have put them to bed.

A successful international break saw the 24-year-old bag a hat-trick against Czech Republic and another goal against Montenegro, as he showed the predatory instincts he was perhaps lacking a couple of years ago:

He also scored a hat-trick in his last Premier League appearance against Watford to take his tally to 15 goals.

The forward only needs three more strikes to match last season's league tally of 18, while four would make this the most prolific domestic campaign of his career.

Overhauling the five players in front of him to win the Golden Boot seems unlikely, but based on his recent form he has a good chance of setting a new personal best.

Aguero Will Win His Second Golden Boot

Given he has scored 161 Premier League goals in his eight seasons with City, it is perhaps a little surprising Aguero has just one Golden Boot to his name.

Though he only has a narrow lead at this stage, he'll hope to win his second this season.

As Opta's Duncan Alexander observed after their 7-0 thrashing of Schalke in the UEFA Champions League earlier in March, City have been far more prolific than their domestic rivals in 2019:

Aguero has been the biggest beneficiary of their excellent form:

As their numbers would suggest, the Sky Blues have a tendency to rack up big scorelines with impressive frequency, per football writer Daniel Storey:

City play Fulham, Cardiff City and Burnley in the run-in, and they've conceded 186 goals between them in the league this season, so City and Aguero—who has three domestic hat-tricks in this campaign—could yet have some more impressive goal hauls under their belt.

As for his competitors, Sadio Mane is enjoying his most prolific league campaign and has scored nine goals in his last nine Premier League games, but it's a big ask for him to maintain that kind of run much longer.

Meanwhile, Salah is struggling and has just one goal in his last 10 in all competitions. He and Mane have one fewer match than their rivals, too, which does their chances no favours.

Aubameyang's lowest league tally in the last three seasons is 23 goals—which was last season, split between the Bundesliga and the Premier League—but he has just four goals in 2019, so he's something of an outsider on current form. 

Aguero's biggest competitor for the gong could be Kane, who also has eight matches left to add his tally.

Kane has won the award twice, and in the second of those he secured it with a stunning seven-goal haul in his final two matches.

A repeat of that feat is somewhat unlikely, but it could go down to the wire between him and Aguero.