JAMIE VARDY is on course to become the Premier League’s oldest Golden Boot winner – beating Chelsea star Didier Drogba.
The Leicester star, 33, has scored 19 goals already this season with nine games still to play.
Jamie Vardy is set to become the Premier League’s oldest Golden Boot winner – beating Didier Drogba
The oldest Golden Boot winners in Premier League history
Vardy currently sits two goals ahead of second-placed Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang this term.
And if the ex-England ace can hold him and the chasing pack off, he’ll become the Premier League’s oldest Golden Boot winner.
Drogba is currently the oldest winner of the award, after he scored 29 goals in the 2009-10 season at the age of 32.
Another former Chelsea ace, Nicolas Anelka, sits in second – after his 19 goals a season earlier, in 2008-09, won him the Golden Boot aged, 30.
A further SIX players have all taken home the award at the age of 29.
Arsenal captain Aubameyang scored 22 times last season to share the award with Liverpool duo Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah.
Robin van Persie won the award at Manchester United in 2012-13 at the same age, along with Dimitar Berbatov in 2010-11.
Drogba also won the Golden Boot aged 29, scoring 20 times in 2016-17 – with Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Dion Dublin the same age when they clinched the trophy in 2000-01 and 1997-98, respectively.
In terms of most goals scored in a Premier League season, Vardy will have to reach 34 to level the all-time record or 35 to beat it.
Andy Cole and Alan Shearer both scored 34 times in 1993-94 and 1994-95 respectively.
But, those seasons both consisted of 42 games rather than 38 – with the record goals tally for a 38-game season set by Salah in 2017-18, with 32 goals.
Vardy will have to keep finding the net though with the chasing pack all within touching distance – and the average goals needed to win the award a sky-high 30.
Credit: William Hill
Aubameyang has 17 goals this term, just two adrift of the Leicester man – with Salah and Sergio Aguero both on 16.
Danny Ings has 15 goals, with Sadio Mane and Marcus Rashford both on 14 for 2019-20.
Three players – Raul Jimenez, Tammy Abraham and Dominic Calvert-Lewin – all have 13, still just six goals adrift of Vardy.
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk