Premier League Golden Boot Watch: Gameweek 3

We're starting to learn again just how important penalties are in the Golden Boot race, as Leicester City's Jamie Vardy scored two from the penalty spot in the Foxes' 5-2 victory over Manchester City, giving him five goals this season, including four penalties. Five goals puts Vardy in a tie for the Premier League lead with Everton's Dominic Calvert-Lewin, who scored against Crystal Palace on Saturday and is one of three players in the Premier League to score in all three gameweeks; Alexandre Lacazette and Patrick Bamford join him, though they only scored once in each of their three games.

I would be remiss not to mention that Matt Birnbach was pushing Calvert-Lewin for the Golden Boot when we podcasted about Premier League futures bets back on Aug. 26, and he's about to become insufferable with Calvert-Lewin's odds to finish as the league's highest scorer going from +6600 on Sept. 2 to +1000 today on DraftKings Sportsbook. Only Mohamed Salah (+400), who has three goals, Vardy (+500) and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (+550), who has one goal, have better odds to win the Golden Boot. Vardy also saw his odds significantly improve from +1200 to +500.

Calvert-Lewin and Vardy weren't the only players to see their odds increase, though no one who moved up is really close to them. Bamford improved from +10000 to +6600, but there are still 24 players with better odds, including Calvert-Lewin's teammate Richarlison, who converted from the penalty spot against Crystal Palace and moved from +8000 to +5000. Joining Richarlison at those odds is Chelsea's Tammy Abraham, who debuts at +5000 after finding the back of the net in their 3-3 draw with West Brom, his first start of the season. Other goal scorers this past weekend who saw their odds improve include Sebastien Haller (+15000 to +10000), Riyad Mahrez (+10000 to +8000) and Jarrod Bowen (+20000 to +15000).

Moving in the other direction, Raheem Sterling went from +1200 to +1400 and Timo Werner +1200 to +1600, and they represent the players with the best odds to win the Golden Boot who haven't scored a goal yet. Anthony Martial is in a similar boat, falling to +3300 from +2500, while Kevin De Bruyne went from +5000 to +6600 despite seemingly still being on penalties for the expected highest-scoring team in the league (he didn't score this past weekend).

And finally, eight players are no longer being offered on DraftKings, so a "thank you for participating" to Moise Kean, Dele Alli, Paul Pogba, Jay Rodriguez, Bernardo Silva, David McGoldrick, Allan Saint-Maximin and Leandro Trossard, who were all either +20000 or +25000.

Here's the updated breakdown, including total goals, penalties and free-kick goals: