Npower Football League Championship Top Goalscorer betting odds

There’s often some tremendous value to be gleaned from the Top Goalscorer markets outside of the Premier League. While the bookmakers know the English top flight very well (and a player from a big club nearly always wins the Golden Boot), the same cannot always be said of the Championship which is a much more competitive division.

Season after season, we see a big-priced winner on this particular market, although perhaps the bookies have the favourite spot-on this season. Middlesbrough manager Gordon Strachan has been busy in the transfer market this summer, signing players north of the border and the most eye-catching of these was Kris Boyd. The striker scored a phenomenal 101 goals from 118 league starts for Rangers and Ladbrokes’ 8/1 looks like a price worth taking.

It was Nicky Maynard who led the way last season by finishing joint-top scorer and the Bristol City forward will be confident of getting somewhere close to that 20-goal haul again. Steve Coppell has become the new Robins manager and the striker is open to improvement at the tender age of 23. There should be plenty of each-way money for him at odds of 14/1 (Sky Bet).

The other player to finish on twenty goals last season was Peter Whittingham, although firms are far from convinced that the Cardiff midfielder can make the same impact in front of goal this time around. He’s on offer at 28/1 (William Hill) to finish top of the pile, with Bluebirds team-mate Michael Chopra (12/1 Ladbrokes) looking to increase his quota this time around. However, it’s the former who does take the penalties for Dave Jones’ team.

Grant Holt is a striker that catches the eye at bigger odds (25/1 Bet Fred), with the Norwich striker having scored loads of goals for the Canaries last season. City are looking as though they will have a strong season on their return to the Championship, although Holt’s former club Nottingham Forest are expected to go even better. That could see Robert Earnshaw (25/1 Ladbrokes) score on a consistent basis, although the Welshman could be subjected to a lot of rotation.

Leicester City finished in the play-offs last season and it was thanks in no small part to the attacking prowess of Matty Fryatt. The 24-year-old is not yet the finished article for the Foxes, although he has scored 49 goals since arriving in 2006 and might benefit from Paulo Sousa arriving at the club. You can back him at odds of 25/1 (Blue Square).

The two other players worth mentioning are Derby’s Rob Hulse (33/1 Bet Fred) and Crystal Palace’s Darren Ambrose (40/1 William Hill). Both are experienced professionals who are capable of scoring twenty goals plus for their respective clubs this season and they should go well at big prices.