At the time of writing, the race for the 2023/24 Premier League Golden Boot award, given to the league’s top scorer each season, is closer than many might have predicted back in August. Right now the top six are separated by just four goals and Erling Haaland is not the shoe-in many expected he would be.
The Norwegian does lead the way, but injury means he “only” has 17 goals in the league thus far. Liverpool’s Mo Salah has also suffered from injury and has played the same number of games as Haaland, registering 15 goals to sit second. Mo is up against it, as he remains injured, but he could yet see off City’s giant striker to claim this season’s award. If he does, there is every chance that the Reds will beat the Sky Blues in the title race too.
However, this season does not interest us right now and the question here is simple: has a Liverpool player ever won the Golden Boot in the Premier League?
Liverpool Lead the Way with Magnificent 7 Golden Boot Wins
Not only have the Reds produced a Golden Boot winner, the club’s players have won the award a massive seven times. No other side can match that and in total four different Liverpool players have taken individual glory. Man United have produced five separate Golden Boot victors but they all won the award just once, with Arsenal’s six wins (by three different players) the next best. So, who was the last Liverpool footballer to win the Golden Boot and who else has banged in the goals to take the prize? Let’s take a look =…
Michael Owen Wins First Golden Boot
Michael Owen well and truly burst onto the scene, both with Liverpool and England. He scored on his Reds debut against Wimbledon at the end of the 1996/97 season, aged just 17 and of course all England fans know what he did at the World Cup in 1998. Owen’s searing pace, excellent movement and finishing ability made him deadly and few could believe he was just 17, such was his maturity, awareness and vision.
Incredibly in his first full season he won the Golden Boot award, jointly with Chris Sutton and Dion Dublin. The trio all managed 18 goals, Owen getting his from 36 Premier League appearances. He went into the World Cup full of confidence and proved he had what it took on the international stage too with that memorable goal against Argentina.
Owen at the Double
The following season he won the Golden Boot again and once again he shared the prize with two other players. This time Dwight Yorke and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink were the men to match Liverpool’s prodigious, prolific youngster, all three once again netting 18 goals. This time around, though, the boyhood Evertonian played just 30 times, so was even more efficient in front of goal.
Suarez Brilliance Almost Delivers the Title
In 2013/14, Liverpool would finish second in the table, just two points behind Man City with 84 points. For a long time it looked like the Reds would finally land a Premier League title, but it wasn’t to be and the less said about that aspect of this season the better.
However, there can be no denying who the best striker in the league was that campaign, with Uruguayan Luis Suarez netting a brilliant 31 goals from just 33 matches. That goals-per-game ratio, of 0.94, is one of the best in PL history and Suarez was so often unplayable. He also won the European Golden Shoe, the only Liverpool player to do so in the Premier League era.
Mo Salah Starts Golden Era
Mo Salah will surely go down as one of the greatest Liverpool players of all time and it would be fitting if he could claim another Premier League title before he leaves. Salah has scored over 200 goals for Liverpool and at the time of writing has accumulated them at a rate of 0.62 per game – an impressive ratio.
He has been so consistent throughout his time on Merseyside, as we shall see, and excluding the current campaign has bagged at least 23 goals (all competitions) in each of his six seasons with the club, getting 30 or more in four of those.
His most prolific campaign was his first though, and in 2017/18 he bagged 44 goals in 52 matches, including 32 in 36 in the league. Salah’s pace, strength, ability to bamboozle and beat a man, and deadly left foot, have made him a fans’ favourite and it will be a sad day when he leaves Anfield.
2018/19: Liverpool Win Award Twice!
In 2018/19 Liverpool somehow failed to win the title despite amassing a huge 97 points. Man City can be quite annoying you know! But their brilliant and much-vaunted attacking unit cannot be faulted and not one, but two of their forwards won – jointly of course – the Golden Boot.
Once again it was a three-way tie for the league’s top scorer, with Mo Salah and Sadio Mane matched by Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. All three attackers netted 22 times, Salah playing all 38 games and the other pair just 36. However, the Premier League does not use games played or assists – or anything else – as a tiebreaker, and so once again the Golden Boot was shared.
Salah Completes Golden Hat-Trick
Liverpool’s Egyptian King has scored several hat-tricks for the Reds but his trio of Premier League Golden Boot awards probably means more than any of the individual ones that helped him win them. In the 2021/22 campaign Salah bagged 23 goals from the 35 Premier League games he appeared in, with that record exactly matched by Spurs’ Son Heung-Min.
The two shared the award and so as things stand Salah has won this individual honour three times. Harry Kane and Alan Shearer have matched that feat, which shows the company Salah is keeping but if he can end the 2023/34 season with a bang, he could move level with Thierry Henry at the top of the pile on four!