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The Norwegian has ruled the Golden Boot race since arriving at Manchester City, but this could be Joao Pedro’s year.

Last season, much of the attention centred on Hugo Ekitike, the standout striker in an underperforming Liverpool attack, whose campaign was cruelly cut short by an Achilles tear against PSG in the Champions League.

Erling Haaland still won the Golden Boot — his third in four seasons, with only Mohamed Salah having interrupted that run — while the French forward scored 11 Premier League goals in 28 appearances.

Yet amid all the focus on Ekitike, and Haaland’s seemingly routine march to another Golden Boot, one Brazilian was quietly building a case to be the Premier League’s next elite striker. This season, he looks set to prove it.

Joao Pedro, much like his French contemporary, was one of the few bright spots in a malfunctioning Chelsea side. He finished the campaign with the Blues’ Player of the Season award and 15 Premier League goals in 35 appearances.

Across all competitions, his tally climbed to 20, which was three more than Ekitike managed, and he also matched the Frenchman’s six assists.

Even with his season-ending injury, Ekitike played only five fewer matches than Pedro, and neither forward was on penalties, with those duties instead handled by Salah and Cole Palmer.

Both forwards were ruthless finishers: Pedro scored 15 league goals from an xG of 14.96, while Ekitike netted 11 from an xG of 9.87.

So how can the Brazilian unseat Haaland, who ended the Premier League season on a huge 27 goals and was also Manchester City’s penalty-taker?

The obvious point is that this is no longer the same City side the Norwegian first joined in 2022/23, when he broke the Premier League record for goals in a 38-game season.

The less obvious point is this: if Haaland wins the Golden Boot again, it would be his fourth in five years, drawing him level for the most ever with two of the Premier League’s greatest scorers, Thierry Henry and Salah.

Will football really allow that record to be matched so soon? Both the Liverpool and Arsenal greats needed at least eight top-flight seasons to reach four Golden Boots, whereas Haaland is on course to do it in almost the same number of years as he has spent in England.

That seems unlikely, and history offers a clue why. A decade ago, many believed Harry Kane would eventually break the Golden Boot record comfortably — so why did he not manage it?

The answer, of course, was Salah. In his first Liverpool season, the Egyptian tore through the division and, like Haaland later would, broke the Premier League goal record. His total of 32 denied Kane a third Golden Boot, even though the England captain scored a remarkable 30 league goals — and even famously swore on his daughter’s life that one of them should be credited to him.

Five seasons later, Salah looked on course for a fourth Golden Boot in 2022/23. So why did that not happen? Once again, the answer was straightforward: Erling Haaland arrived.

And when Haaland appeared certain to complete a three-peat in 2024/25, Salah turned back the clock to claim his fourth, producing what was described as the greatest individual season in Premier League history.

The wider point is that when scorers of the calibre of Kane, Salah and Haaland are playing in this league, it usually feels inevitable that the award will end up with one of them. But whenever the all-time Golden Boot mark comes into view, somebody unexpectedly seems to rise and stop it from being taken so easily.

This season, that disruptor could be Pedro — a clinical, versatile goalscorer operating in a Chelsea system that has started the campaign in thrilling style, winning matches 4-3 and 3-2.

This is an attack built to score heavily, with two top-class creators in Palmer and Morgan Rogers, and Pedro is the central finisher. He already has two goals in two games, just like Haaland, but this feels like the season in which the Brazilian keeps going rather than fading. Haaland, by contrast, has suffered mid-season dips in each of the last two campaigns, and life under Maresca may not be as smooth as it was under Pep Guardiola.

Thirty goals may still be beyond the Chelsea forward, but Haaland could well be restricted to the low 20s as he adjusts to a reshaped Manchester City side and a different system. With Ekitike unlikely to come back as the same player after injury, and Alexander Isak almost certain to face difficulties in a Liverpool front line that may need at least a season to settle, Pedro’s route to the Golden Boot suddenly looks open.

Chelsea may still be a few years away from becoming polished enough to win the Premier League title, but their clinical Brazilian striker already looks ready.