The race for the European Golden Shoe - December 2018 watch

#14 Junior Moraes (Shaktar Donetsk)

League - Ukraine Premier League

League coefficient (x1.5)

11 goals (19.5 points)

Moraes (R) in action for Shakhtar Donetsk in the UCL

The 31-year-old Brazilian has been something of a journeyman throughout his career, putting in shifts in leagues as diverse as Brazil, Romania, Bulgaria and China.

He signed for Shaktar Donetsk at the start of the current season having run down his contract with eternal rivals Dynamo Kyiv and he has been nothing short of brilliant for The Miners.

Moraes has scored 11 goals from 13 matches to help Shaktar sit top of the UPL standings, holding a healthy seven point gap on Dynamo Kyiv.

#13 Edinson Cavani (PSG)

League - France Ligue 1

League coefficient (x2)

10 goals (20 points)

Edinson Cavani

Long in the shadow of Zlatan Ibrahimovic ever since his 2013 arrival from Napoili, the Uruguayan international was forced to play out wide to accomadate the more established Zlatan for much of his early PSG career.

The Swedish record goalscorer's departure in 2016 offered Cavani the chance to be the main striker of the team, and he has flourished since then in his more preferred central role.

In each of the first two season following Ibrahimovic's departure, Cavani won the Ligue 1 Golden Boot, scoring 35 goals and 28 goals respectively.

He has however faced criticism for his non-performance in the Champions League knockout rounds (which is where PSG have their sights set on), and the arrivals of Neymar and Mbappe might have robbed him off his first-team status to some degree, but he is still delivering the goods.

So far this season, he has scored ten goals in his Ligue 1 matches, helping PSG set a new French record of winning their first twelve matches consecutively, in what is likely to be a procession to an eighth consecutive French league title.