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Ranking the five leading scorers in Europe's major leagues since 2017/18

Mohamed Salah began the new season with a clinical hat-trick in Liverpool’s opening day win against Leeds last weekend, the forward making a statement of intent as he bids to finish as the Premier League’s leading scorer once more.

The Egyptian international has scored prolifically since returning to English football and we recently looked at the five Premier League players with most goal involvements since Salah’s Liverpool debut three years ago.

Following on from that we’ve decided to see how the forward compares to Europe’s greatest goalscorers of recent seasons, with a look at the most prolific players from Europe’s top five leagues.

Here are the five leading scorers in Europe’s major leagues since 2017/18:

Mohamed Salah – 76 goals

Salah ranks fifth amongst Europe’s finest forwards after flourishing into one of the best attacking players in world football since returning to the Premier League three years ago, the Egyptian forming part of a deadly forward line that has transformed Liverpool into contenders for major silverware.

Salah’s first season on Merseyside saw the star score a record-breaking 32 league goals in a 38-game season, his performances rewarded with the PFA Player of the Year and FWA Footballer of the Year awards alongside the Premier League’s Golden Boot.

Salah followed that campaign with a second successive Golden Boot in 2018/19, before a 19-goal haul last season as Liverpool were crowned as champions of England for the first time in three decades.

The forward’s current record stands at a phenomenal 76 goals in just 109 league appearances for the Reds, a hat-trick on the opening day of the new Premier League season the perfect start for Salah as the bids to finish as the division’s leading scorer for a third time.

Cristiano Ronaldo – 78 goals

A name few will be surprised to see feature highly on this list, Cristiano Ronaldo has shattered all forms of goalscoring records during a career spent at the very pinnacle of the game.

The all-time record goalscorer in the history of Real Madrid, Ronaldo plundered 26 league goals during his final season at the Bernabeu before a switch to Juventus, where he has maintained his phenomenal standards with 52 goals in just 64 Serie A appearances.

Last season saw Ronaldo shatter the 30-goal league barrier for the first time in four seasons, the 35-year-old showing few signs of slowing down in a remarkable career that recently saw the Portuguese become the first player in history to hit a century of international goals for a European nation.

Ronaldo finished as the runner-up for the Capocannoniere as Serie A’s leading scorer last season and will have his sights set firmly on bettering that this season, as he seeks to make more history by becoming the first player to win Golden Boot awards in England, Spain and Italy.

Ciro Immobile – 80 goals

The winner of last season’s European Golden Shoe and the first player to win it outright in more than a decade of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi dominance, Ciro Immobile is playing the best football of his career in the colours of Lazio after finding a home in the Italian capital.

Immobile has enjoyed a career of peaks and troughs, mixing prolific patches with indifferent spells at a succession of clubs, but there are few finishers as deadly amongst Europe’s major leagues at present.

Last season saw Immobile score an incredible 36 goals in just 37 league appearances for Lazio, equalling the all-time record for a Serie A season and finishing as the division’s leading scorer for the third time in his career to date.

That haul saw the Italy international reach 80 league goals since the start of the 2017/18 season, more than the likes of Ronaldo and Salah with only two players having managed more across Europe’s top five leagues.

Robert Lewandowski – 85 goals

Robert Lewandowski is regarded by many as the best out-and-out number nine in world football today, a status few would dispute given his goalscoring record for Bayern Munich in recent seasons.

The Poland international has scored 85 league goals over the past three seasons for the German giants, winning three consecutive Bundesliga titles and finishing as the division’s leading scorer on each occasion.

Lewandowski has now won the Bundesliga’s Golden Boot on five occasions and sits third in the league’s all-time leading scorers list, with no non-German player having ever managed more than his 236 goals for Borussia Dortmund and Bayern.

The 31-year-old’s 34 league goals last season was the best haul of his career and part of 55 goals in all competitions as Bayern Munich won a treble, Lewandowski finishing as the leading scorer in the league, German Cup and Champions League last season.

His incredible record for Bayern now stands at 246 goals in just 289 appearances, the forward having scored 40+ goals in each of the past five campaigns.

Lionel Messi – 95 goals

Could it really be anyone else?

The reigning Ballon d’Or winner remains the world’s finest footballer despite entering the latter years of a record-breaking career, scoring 95 league goals over the past three seasons for Barcelona.

Messi has now finished as Spanish football’s leading scorer in each of the past four seasons and on a record seven occasions, his most recent Pichichi trophy seeing the Argentine move past the legendary Athletic Bilbao star Telmo Zarra last season.

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The 33-year-old’s all-time record in La Liga now stands at 444 goals in 485 appearances, more than a century of goals ahead of nearest challenger Cristiano Ronaldo and at an average of 0.92 goals-per-game.

Last season saw Messi post his lowest goals tally for more than a decade with just 25 league goals, a tally he compensated for by shattering the all-time single season assist record with 21 goals provided for his teammates.

Read – Picking the best Barcelona XI of the Lionel Messi era

Read Also – Rating the ability of the seven Premier League kids nominated for the Golden Boy award

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