As the winter creeps around the continent, it’s time to start with our monthly check up on the the top scorers across Europe from it’s five best leagues – England, Germany, Spain, Italy and France.

English Premiership

Kevin Nolan (Newcastle), Florent Malouda (Chelsea) and Carlos Tevez (Manchester City) – 7 Goals

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A couple of surprising names to find here on this list – First is Kevin Nolan, Newcastle’s midfielder who jumped ahead of the competition thanks to his hat trick against Sunderland in Newcastle’s 5-1 romp of their rivals. Nolan is in excellent form anyhow with 5 goals in his last three matches.

Florent Malouda is the next midfielder to share the top of England’s scoring charts, although unlike Nolan, his good form seems to be a tad behind. He’s still playing very well, but the start of the season goal glut seems to be over. Malouda scored two weeks ago against Wolves, but before that it was three goalless matches for the French international.

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Another man who started the season on fire is Carlos Tevez, but now his injury, which he is taking care of in Argentina, could mean a drop in the scoring charts.

Behind them with six goals so far are Drogba, Darren Bent and Berbatov, with Bent and Drogba better options than Malouda and Nolan to lead the scoring charts in the months ahead.

Spanish La Liga

Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid) – 12 Goals

Is it the new manager, Mourinho? Is it the desire, the competition with Messi, bringing out the best of Ronaldo early in the season? Maybe he’s just that good. Well, he is, arguably, depends which person you ask, the best player in the world. He’s certainly started off that way. Twelve goals in his first nine matches, including 4 against Racing Santander two weeks ago and has scored at least two goals in each of his last four league games.

At number 2 is Lionel Messi of course, with an impressive haul of 7 goals so far. If it was anyone else, we would be really impressed. With Messi? Not at all.

German Bundesliga

Theofanis Gekas (Frankfurt) – 9 Goals

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The 30 year old Greek international has moved around quite a bit in recent years, including two Bundesliga clubs (Hertha, Leverkusen) last season, but it seems he feels quite comfortable with Frankfurt. He has scored nine goals in 10 league matches, including 5 goals in October, while leading his team to surprising fifth place so far this season.

Chasing Gekas are Papiss Cisse (Freiburg) with 8 goals, and then a large group with 6 – Grafite and Dzeko (Wolfsburg), Srdjan Lakic (Kaiserslautern) and Demba Ba of Hoffenheim.

Italian Serie A

Samuel Eto’o (Inter Milan) – 7 Goals

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The joke says that Eto’o stopped playing right-back like he did last season so that’s why all the goals have started coming, but seriously, Eto’o has been on fire since the beginning of the season, with 7 league goals in 8 matches and 16 in 14 including all competitions. Inter may not be leading the table, but I really can’t see them losing the title this season, especially with Eto’o firing with everything he’s got. Behind him right now are Cavani of Napoli with six and two players with five goals – Marco Di Vaio (Bologna) and Alessandro Matri (Cagliari).

French Ligue 1

Dimitri Payet (St. Etienne) – 8 Goals

Since the downfall of Lyon, the most dominant champions in French history, nothing is predictable. Brest are leading the top flight. Brest! Dimitri Payet, a 23 year old winger from Saint Etienne who has never scored more than 4 goals in a season, is leading the scoring charts, including a hat trick, a career first for him. Saint Etienne have cooled off since their fantastic start, not winning in their last four matches and Payet’s scoring has been affected, or maybe it’s the cause – 1 goal in the last four matches.

Chasing Payet in this early stage are Youssef El Arabi (Caen) with 7 goals, PSG’s Nene and Gregory Pujol (Valenciennes) with 6.