Mo Salah is a 4 season wonder at this point...
He's nowhere near good enough
at finishing that he should be the PL record holder though. He lucked out with his finishing in that first irregular season. He brings much more to the game than just goalscoring though and that's why I specifically talked about his regression in goalscoring terms (having said that, his increasing selfishness is actually diminishing his other contributions).
I haven't said anywhere that he's not a good or even great player. He clearly is. It's just that if you simulated that same season without injuries repeatedly, you would expect either Kane or Aguero to end up with the Golden Boot in most of them and for one of those two to take the record (in terms of raw finishing ability, they're a tier above the rest of the league).
Each to their own, but the BIB is a baffling sentence for me
there's not really any evidence to suggest Kane will "trounce" Salah in the goals department if Salah stays at his natural level
What is Salah's natural level?? the Level of the season where he scored 22 League goals (
31 all comps)
or the season he scored 32 League goals (
46 in all comps)
Kane and Salah are 2 completely different players, Kane could beat Salah this year, he's good enough, but it will take a lot to be Salah, a lot imo
I'm going for
Salah
Aguero
Kane
Aubameyang
Sterling
Mane
not in that order, but I think they will be the front runners.
One season can be an anomaly and that's likely what Salah's 32 goal season was, especially looking at his tally last term. His 21 goals last time around seems like a much more realistic target/representation of his goalscoring abilities.
Kane, on the other hand, has never had a season in which he has played as many games as Salah did last season while scoring
less than 21 goals. In fact, Kane's had a season in which he played fewer games and scored 29 goals (the highest GPG in a PL season). Kane also has the highest overall GPG in PL history (just 0.01 above Aguero).
Last season was Kane's own anomaly: a season marred by injuries in which he managed to score less than 20 in the league, which is absolutely atrocious by his standards and his worst ever by quite some distance.
Kane has actually been pretty unlucky in that if you took his GPG from a few of his 5 seasons so far and allowed him to play 36-38 consistent games in them, he'd have broken Salah's record multiple times already. Kane's 29 in 30 season particularly stands out because he could've put the goalscoring record beyond anyone for a very long time and even broken the >38 game record despite being in the PL era, which would've been a fantastic feat.
The viciousness of full strength Kane unrestrained by injuries was demonstrated in 2017 when he scored more goals than anyone else, Messi and Ronaldo etc. included, with a far superior GPG to them as well. He's still the only player besides them to have done that this decade (AFAIK) so it looks likely he'll finish the 2010s as the only player to have beaten Messi and Ronaldo to any kind of long-term scoring record. I still don't think most people appreciate just how elite Kane's striking ability really is.
Unless he has another injury nightmare this season, it's likely that Kane will revert to
his goalscoring mean, which the, admittedly inconclusive, evidence suggests is higher than that of Salah. By my reckoning, in any average season, the smartest bet for the Golden Boot is Kane, like it has been ever since he scored 21 in ~28 during his breakout season.
To each their own though, of course.