5 players who could score more goals than Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in 2018

Every year, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo score quite a few goals. This has been happening for so long that I can’t really remember the last time who, apart from the two won it… until Harry Kane did the unthinkable last year.

The Englishman scored 56 goals in 2017, finally putting an end to the Messi-Ronaldo duopoly in this regard—and there is no reason to believe why it won’t happen again. And here are the 5 players who could break it!

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#5 Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang

Auba is a goal machine

The Gabon captain has been one of the most consistent scorers in the world for a long time. It is actually quite astounding he is still at Borussia Dortmund when most of his best team-mates have tasted the delicacies of foreign shores, only to return back to the Gelsenkirchen.

Aubameyang, however, has stayed put. Or, rather, has been forced to stay put due to the fact that most clubs seemingly have the strikers they want. This is also coupled with the fact that the price tag over the former Milan man is quite steep.

However, none of this changes the fact that he is one of the most lethal players in the world. At 28, he is enjoying the peak years of his career and it shows. With 21 goals from 23 games this season, he ended 2017 on a high and it is only a matter of time for him to pick up from where he left off.

#4 Mohamed Salah

Salah has been insane this season

At Basel, Mohamed Salah was a talented Egyptian who had the potential to be one of the best players in Europe. At Chelsea, his abilities were underused and it was feared that he might not become the player that people had hoped.

In Florence, he resurged his career again and earned a move to Rome. In the city of gladiators, he finally reached the level that was expected of him—but it was definitely not his ceiling. And now at the Merseyside with Liverpool, he is enjoying the best years of his life as a footballer.

Bursting in from the right, Salah has been in phenomenal touch since joining the Reds. So far this season, he has already scored 23 goals from 29 games. He might have to miss a few initial weeks of 2018 due to injury—which will be a setback, no doubt—but his ability will once again get him among the top scorers.

#3 Edinson Cavani

He is a man on fire

When he was plying his trade in Palermo, everyone saw a future goal-machine in the Uruguayan. After that, Napoli quickly snapped him up—and that is where the machine was slowly reaching its best. After scoring 104 goals from only 138 games for the Naples outfit, he moved to France to Ligue 1 giants, Paris-Saint Germain for a fee of around €64 million.

But then he couldn’t really shine due to the presence of Zlatan Ibrahimovic. While nobody would like to claim it, Ibra’s presence made it difficult for Cavani as he had to attack from the wings. However, after his departure, the Uruguayan has been in supernatural touch from the centre.

So far this season, he leads the European Golden Boot race with 19 league goals under his belt. In totally, he has scored 25 goals this season and, with Neymar and Mbappe playing beside him, there is no sign of him stopping anytime soon.

#2 Neymar

Priceless Neymar

A list like this without him would be farcical, to say the least. The connection is actually quite surreal. After the departure of Ibra, Cavani has flourished. With Messi in front of him, Neymar perhaps realised that he won’t have the opportunity to be the main man.

The Brazilian might have taken this lesson from Cavani as he chose to go to Paris-Saint Germain and become the focal point in attack for the Parisiens. He might not have reached his optimum scoring ability, but who knows—this could be his year.

His stats this season are phenomenal to put it simply. He has 17 goals from 20 games and the way he has played this season, thus far, there is a good chance that he will add another 30 more by the time the season concludes.

And that would be a good push to lead the charts by the end of the year.

#1 Harry Kane

The smiling assassin

Obviously. The man who finally broke the Messi-Ronaldo goalscoring duopoly should be the most favourite to do it again. The Englishman was labelled as a one-season wonder by many quarters of the football fraternity.

And he has hit them back so strongly. The Tottenham Hotspur star scored 56 goals in 2017 to finish as the highest scorer in European football for the year. With each passing game, it seems as though he is becoming an even better player.

He is a complete forward, someone who you can rely on to score when it matters the most. Be it his head or a long shot, he can do it all—which is one of the reasons as to why Real Madrid are constantly being linked with the forward.

And someday, who knows, he might just don the white of Madrid.