There is a very noticeable trend in the race for the Premier League golden boot this season: a lot of strikers are scoring a lot of goals and a surprising number of them are English. Seven players scored more than 10 league goals before New Year’s Day and all but one of them have been capped by England. As 2019 became 2020, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang sat in the top scorer chart alongside six England internationals: Jamie Vardy, Danny Ings, Tammy Abraham, Marcus Rashford, Harry Kane and Raheem Sterling.

Of course, top scorer Vardy – whose total of 17 goals puts him four clear of his closest challengers – has retired from international football, but Gareth Southgate has plenty of alternatives. The most surprising among them is undoubtedly Ings, who scored his 13th league goal of the season against Tottenham on New Years’s Day, taking him two clear of Kane at the opposite end. Kane has been guaranteed a starting place in the England team for some time – he was made captain by Southgate before the World Cup in 2018 and repaid that faith by winning the golden boot – but he is now facing genuine competition.

Kane’s annual mid-season injury struck on New Year’s Day as he pulled up with a hamstring problem, giving the players above him in the scoring charts – Ings included – a chance to move further clear. Abraham and Rashford, both still just 22 years old, are tied on 12 league goals and offer hope of an exciting future. And Raheem Sterling is level with Kane on 11 goals.

Throw in Jadon Sancho (who has picked up nine goals and 10 assists in the Bundesliga so far this season), Dominic Calvert-Lewin (eight goals for Everton in the Premier League), as well as Dele Alli, James Maddison, Jack Grealish and Todd Cantwell (six league goals apiece), and England’s attacking options appear stronger than they have been for a very long time.

While Vardy boasts the best conversion rate of those mentioned at a remarkable 34.7%, Sancho (32.1%) and Ings (27.1%) are not too far behind. Kane, however, is some way back on 19.6%. He is still just 26, but could we be looking at a player who – like Michael Owen or even Wayne Rooney – has played so many games before his supposed “peak years” that he has in fact already peaked?

Kane remains an outstanding player and a very prolific striker, but his goal returns have waned in recent seasons. His tally of 17 league goals last season was his lowest since he became a first team regular at Tottenham in 2014. And his minutes-per-goal rate is going up. He scored a goal every 87.4 minutes in the 2016-17 season but that figure has now almost doubled to 161.8 minutes per goal. His form a few years ago was incredible and was always going to be difficult to sustain, but his strike rate has dropped year-on-year since. And it has done so as the competition for his place has become more fierce.

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Fitting Sterling, Rashford, Sancho and Kane into the same starting XI is a near impossibility for Southgate, but could we soon see an equally improbable scenario whereby the captain is sacrificed? Crucially for Kane, he offers something completely different to the pacy trio who have served as his support cast in the Euro 2020 qualifying campaign, but Ings and Abraham are hoping to prove that they can do the same.

Ousting Kane will take some doing. He has scored 32 goals in 45 games for England and is on course to break Wayne Rooney’s record as the country’s all time top goalscorer. Nevertheless, Southgate has attacking options aplenty heading into the Euros and for that he will be extremely thankful.

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