Liverpool to retain Premier League title this year with Salah as top scorer

When Manchester City sealed their fourth Premier League title in five seasons in May, their total of 93 points was the joint sixth-best mark in the competition's history. Liverpool finished just one point behind, 18 points clear of third-placed Chelsea. Of the eight biggest point hauls in Premier League history, six of them have been achieved by these two clubs in the past five seasons, including all of the top four. City's and Liverpool's respective goal differences of +73 and +68 put them both into the top five in league history.

City have signed Erling Haaland, who scored 86 goals in 89 games for Borussia Dortmund, as well as Julian Alvarez, who scored six goals in one Copa Libertadores match, which happened to be one of his final appearances for River Plate. Liverpool, meanwhile, have brought in Darwin Nunez, a striker who scored 32 goals in 38 games for Benfica last term, including strikes against Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Ajax, and his new employers. Can any team of Premier League of them a credible challenge to break Liverpool's and City's duopoly when that pair have been able to build again from such a position of strength?

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Mohamed Salah

Since Mohamed Salah shocked everyone in his first season at Liverpool by scoring 32 Premier League goals to claim the 2017-18 Golden Boot, the figures required to win the award have fallen back to normal levels. Salah shared the prize with fellow Africans Sadio Mane and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang the following season despite scoring 10 fewer goals (22), while he needed only one more than that to get his hands on it for a third time (shared with Son Heung-Min) last term.

It's all a far cry from the days when the lead striker at a top club could make hitting the 30-goal mark a realistic target, but this coming season promises to bring that back. Haaland averaged almost a goal per game in the Bundesliga while at Dortmund (22 in 24 appearances last season, and 62 in 67 overall), so the main obstacle to a clear run at the Golden Boot for him could be his own injury issues. Nunez's 26 goals in 28 league games for Benfica last term is similarly prodigious, although he'll need a strong start to erase any whispers of "one-season wonder."