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Top 5 candidates to win the Capocannoniere this season

By John Vaccaro

Krzysztof Piatek #19 of AC Milan celebrates after scoring the his goal during the serie A match between AC Milan and Empoli FC at Stadio Giuseppe Meazza on February 22, 2019 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by Giuseppe Cottini/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Krzysztof Piatek #19 of AC Milan celebrates after scoring the his goal during the serie A match between AC Milan and Empoli FC at Stadio Giuseppe Meazza on February 22, 2019 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by Giuseppe Cottini/NurPhoto via Getty Images) /
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LONDON, ENGLAND – FEBRUARY 27: Romelu Lukaku of Manchester United scoring a goal during the Premier League match between Crystal Palace and Manchester United at Selhurst Park on February 27, 2019 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Sebastian Frej/MB Media/Getty Images)
LONDON, ENGLAND – FEBRUARY 27: Romelu Lukaku of Manchester United scoring a goal during the Premier League match between Crystal Palace and Manchester United at Selhurst Park on February 27, 2019 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Sebastian Frej/MB Media/Getty Images) /

4. Romelu Lukaku

Romelu Lukaku is the newest entrant in the race for the 2019-20 Capocannoniere and there is good reason to believe he could be the one that brings it home. He has already shown a propensity for scoring goals during his time at Everton in the Premier League (and a little bit at United, but those years were mostly disappointing).

Now he joins Inter Milan at the perfect time to become a star. The club desperately needs somebody to replace Mauro Icardi’s goalscoring. They have a new manager who needs to make a good first impression with his club’s fanbase and over the last few months, they have added talent that will complement him very nicely.

He is probably off some people’s radars for this award because of his disappointing last couple of seasons and because of Antonio Conte’s reputation as a manager who puts together great defenses.

However, Conte has actually put together high scoring teams at both Juventus and Chelsea. In his 3 seasons at Juventus, Juve led the league in scoring once and was top 3 in the other 2 seasons. Chelsea also finished top 3 in scoring in his first year there.

In those years, Diego Costa managed a 20 goal season while Eden Hazard also scored 16 and Carlos Tevez scored 19 while Fernando Llorente scored 16. His other 2 years at Juventus didn’t produce a high scoring player, but it is hard to blame Conte for that when he was starting Mirko Vucinic and Alessandro Matri up front.

What this really tells us is that Inter is going to score this year. At worst, they’ll certainly outproduce their 57 goals from last year. Lukaku stands to be a huge beneficiary of that. Costa and Llorente were both bigger targets in the attack who found success with Conte and neither of them was a focal point like Lukaku will be at Inter. There is no Carlos Tevez or Eden Hazard around for Inter to lean on and take touches and goals away from Lukaku.

I don’t know if his change of scenery will be enough for Lukaku, but he has a lot working in his favor and should be able to at least crack the top 5 this year.

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