Division One - Hot Shots
07/10/02 | by Daniel Harding

People say that the best way to get out of this league is to score goals, and to do that, you need a quality striker. The following are the strikers who will be battling it out for the Golden Boot over the course of the season.

First off, not much of a surprise, is David Johnson. He sits atop of the goal-scoring chart with 13, fresh from his double yesterday. He is on fire and there is not a defence which can stop him, as 9 goals in 5 game shows. There could be some people getting very rich if they gambled on Johnson before the start of the season (after the Newcastle game he was 80/1 to be top scorer).

Before I go over the top on DJ, I’ll move on to the other guys. Paul McVeigh, Norwich’s Northern Ireland international, has 8 goals this term so far. He is a quick, versatile player, who can also play on the left, and is carrying on his good form from the end of last year. He is essential to Norwich’s chances.

Alan Lee has been banging in a few goals for Rotherham already and if they can keep up their excellent start, nearly holding Portsmouth yesterday, there is no reason why he shouldn’t. Darren Byfield also has a few goals for Rotherham but I don’t think he will be prolific since most of them were in one game against Millwall.

Preston’s Riccardo Fuller has impressed me this season. Despite drawing far two many games, Preston have made a solid start with Fuller playing very well. Signed from Tivoli Gardens in Jamaica, he is a striker in the Stern John mould (who also by the way, showed some brilliant skill to defeat West Ham yesterday!) He is quick and can win headers, as his goal at the City Ground in August showed, and will cause many problems in this league.

Gary McSheffrey is a promising young striker at Coventry who has the potential to go all the way. He only has a few in the league so far, but he bagged a hat trick in the League Cup and has enough pace and ability to score goals at this level. Jay Bothroyd might have something to say about who is the top gun at Coventry though.

Jamie Cureton is a very skilful striker who scored plenty for Reading last season. He has started well with 6 already and should be up there at the end of the season.

Malcolm Christie, probably Derby’s best player, is a class act who works very hard and can score goals at a much higher level than this. He has a habit of arriving late and finishing moves, if Derby make any, and he can work the ball into good situations. He will be a threat at Prideless Park on the 20th.

Bobby Zamora, Marcus Bent, Svetoslav Todorov and Danny Webber deserve a mention also.

Anyway, on to results this weekend. Portsmouth gained a scrappy 3-2 win over Rotherham, who played very well despite playing a great deal of the match with ten men. Norwich and Leicester played out a tense nil-nil at Carrow Road. We are breathing down their necks, so they had better watch out.

Derby County threw away a 2 goal lead, thanks to Christie, at home to Walsall, with Aranalde scoring a penalty in stoppage time after Steve Corica had pulled one back. They are not in the best of form and I think if Forest get off to a good start we can take them easily. Malcolm Christie is the danger man. There should be an incredible atmosphere at the PPS, even if the home crowd are silenced after a few minutes. I am sure those lucky enough to have a ticket (I got up early, but not early enough to get a ticket) will make one hell of a noise.

Elsewhere, Coventry got a 2-0 win at Gillingham and Darren Ambrose scored a last minute winner for Ipswich at Wimbledon today. Draw specialists Preston did it again away to Bradford. Grimsby lost 3-0 at home to Reading, with a spectacular own goal from Alan Pouton sealing Grimsby’s fate. Brighton remain rock bottom after a Michael Kuipers blunder let Heidar Helguson snatch all three points for Watford. Martin Hinshelwood is under an immense amount of pressure now and is likely to be unemployed very soon.

On a final note, I would like to congratulate Michael Dawson on his call up to the Under-21s. Not a moment too soon, as the rest of the nation will find out shortly.