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Harry Kane

double0

Well-Known Member
Aug 29, 2006
14,423
12,258
Harry will never be skinny he's not built like that at all. By the way you can be built and fit the speed can come with football intelligence.
 

SSC

Well-Known Member
Apr 27, 2004
407
1,639
As others have said, I'd take that level of overweightness any day!

I think worth remembering these guys are top pros and have the best medical science in the business. Harry particularly is a meticulous trainer/monitor of his fitness. Just like a boxer in the weeks up to a fight, shredding a couple of pounds of excess weight can be done very quickly. They'll all be on a programme to optimise match fitness return for the week of the season restarting, remember they only started contact training last week.
 

bubble07

Well-Known Member
Dec 27, 2004
22,959
29,896
Very in depth article which is worth reading

Such was Harry Kane’s meteoric rise for the five years after his Tottenham breakthrough, there was always a lingering fear that, at some point, he might have to slow down.

For some, that point has been reached already. The injuries, the slightly diminishing goal return and the apparent loss of a yard of pace have all been used as evidence to suggest Kane, still only 26, is not quite the force he once was. Jamie Carragher wrote in The Telegraph in April that Kane’s “physical statistics are dropping” and pointed to his recent injury record as cause for concern. In analytics circles, Kane’s dwindling shot output and reduced expected goals (xG) have been used as evidence of his decline.

So, with the Premier League edging towards a restart and Jose Mourinho confirming on Wednesday that Kane has shaken off his hamstring injury, it’s worth taking a deeper look at the numbers and context to assess Kane’s role, output and future at Spurs. The data shows him playing in a more withdrawn position this season, for instance, and is one of many elements to consider.
On the face of it, Kane’s reduced goalscoring numbers this season suggest that he is on the decline. Eleven Premier League goals is his lowest total since he became a regular for the club in 2014-15. That can, in large, be put down to the hamstring injury he suffered in January and the fact that there are nine matches of the season remaining. But even when we adjust the numbers to per 90 minutes played, this is still Kane’s worst campaign for Spurs when it comes to scoring non-penalty goals — contributing 0.46 per 90.

It’s also the case, however, that Kane and Spurs’ recent histories are tightly intertwined, and so it’s hard to know which way the causality runs: are Spurs worse because Kane’s dropped off or has Kane dropped off because Tottenham aren’t as good as they once were? Certainly, the tumult of this season and the transitional nature of the current team are not the ideal platform for a striker to prosper — though he has still managed to score 17 goals in 25 club appearances, so it’s important to keep any supposed “decline” in perspective. There’s always a degree to which we take such consistency for granted and pounce on any slight deviation.

To get a sense of how Kane’s output has changed over time, a look at his non-penalty goal and xG numbers in the last six years is revealing. A glance at the image below shows an obvious trend — he finds his rhythm and goes on a scoring tear in 2016-17 but the goals come down year-on-year after that, with a pretty precipitous drop after 2017-18.

kane_scoring-1024x1024.png

While his best season for getting into good goalscoring positions was 2017-18, we see what many already know — Kane’s an elite finisher and consistently “beats” xG. Whether that is something that is sustainable in his later years remains to be seen and although he is an excellent finisher, reducing the quality of chances he finds himself in naturally reduces the number of goals he can score.

With Spurs as a team, we see a similar story. They consistently beat xG but the goals peaked in 2016-17 and their xG has been on the slide since, bottoming out this season. Tottenham’s xG per game for 2019-20 so far is 1.26, which sees them as the 12th-best in the Premier League — in other words, a mid-table quality attack.
spurs_scoring-1-1024x1024.png

There’s been a similar downward trend in the volume of chances that both Spurs and Kane create. It’s notable that in Kane’s earlier seasons, Spurs were capable of creating plenty of shooting opportunities with Kane contributing a smaller amount — they were a better side overall and didn’t need to rely on an individual player to create chances for them.
spurs_shots-1024x717.png

Football is a team sport, so it’s hard to completely pin the reason for such a large change in output onto a single player. If Spurs were to put even a historically elite striker in the team, say Cristiano Ronaldo, it’s likely his excellent shot numbers would drop off also.

So if it’s hard to infer what’s happened to Kane through his own numbers, then let’s tackle this another way — how has the support he receives changed across the past few seasons?

Below is a table of all of the assists that Kane has received from team-mates in the past few years. They are not adjusted for changing minutes or goals scored but they paint an instructive picture regardless.
kane_assisters-823x1024.png

There’s been an evident drop-off in the number of assists but that’s to be expected given the goalscoring numbers have dropped off. Looking positionally across the pitch, we can see that the left-back position largely occupied by Danny Rose and Ben Davies has returned just a single assist for Kane in the last two seasons, and seven in the three seasons prior.

At right-back, Kieran Trippier provided Kane with 10 assists in three seasons, with his replacement Serge Aurier posting just one in the three seasons he’s been at the club. And although Aurier has played fewer minutes, his per 90 rate of 0.02 also pales in comparison to Trippier’s 0.17.

The primary sources of assists at the start of Kane’s Spurs career were Christian Eriksen and Dele Alli. Dele and Kane formed a great partnership in 2015-16 but Dele has provided just a single assist for Kane in the past couple of seasons. This is partly a consequence of Dele playing deeper during the latter period of Mauricio Pochettino’s reign. It is hoped that his return to the No 10 role under Mourinho will reignite his and Kane’s partnership.

It should also be pointed out that there’s more to chance creation than just assists. Players can create a great chance for a team-mate, only to see them miss the target or fail to score. Looking at chances created in isolation can give a bit more insight into the volume of chances but some notion of quality is required to get an even fuller picture.

Taking into account the quality of chances that are created, we can look at the expected assists — which in this instance, are the xG of key passes — that each player has created for Kane per 90 minutes. Below is how the chances are distributed across each season for Spurs.
2_all_kane_xa_adj-1024x1024.png

A handful of names stick out here but also the overall trend of fewer and fewer players able to provide Kane with decent service.
That’s illustrated best when comparing the side of 2015-16 to this season. Dele, Nacer Chadli, Erik Lamela and Eriksen four seasons ago were all creating chances that, in a full season, would expect them to each bag at least two assists.

Fast forward to 2019-20 and only the now-departed Eriksen has put up performances worth two or more assists over the course of a full season. When play resumes, Giovani Lo Celso will be expected to take on more of this Eriksen role. He has only posted one assist for the club but he registered five last season and only started playing regularly for Tottenham after Kane’s injury and once the side’s attacking options were drastically weakened.

What’s more concerning is the complete dearth of chances being created for Kane consistently from the full-back positions this season. While Trippier was a regular supplier for Kane, Aurier’s chances created for Kane are of much lower quality — even though he has provided the third-highest quality of chances for Kane this season.
So if Kane’s not being provided with as many chances, where is he spending his time?

From the graphic below, which shows how Kane’s touches have been split across the thirds of the pitch, this season represents career-highs for the share of touches in the defensive and middle thirds, and a career-low in the share of touches in the attacking third. This graphic illustrates what many have felt the eye test has shown — that Kane is dropping deeper and playing less as a classic No 9.
kane_touch_share_adj-1.png

This graphic, meanwhile, shows how Kane has moved even deeper since Mourinho took over in November.
kane_touch_share_mou_poch_adj-1-1024x614.png

On a couple of occasions in Mourinho’s early weeks in charge, he praised Kane for his all-round contribution, making it clear what he expected from his centre-forward. “Not just the goals; it’s the goals, the combination play, what he does between the lines, what he does in the defensive process, what he does at the leadership level,” Mourinho said after Kane’s two goals against Burnley in December’s 5-0 win.
He was similarly effusive after Kane had scored to help Spurs beat Brighton 2-1 a few weeks later. “He’s the kind of striker who is always fantastic, even when he’s not scoring. There are so many top scorers in the world who score so many goals but the day they don’t score, their performance is always poor because they give nothing.
“This (Kane) is the guy who if he doesn’t score, his performance is good. He presses, he recovers balls, he holds the ball, he assists, he drops back.”

The expectation that Mourinho was reinforcing here is that Kane, as he approaches his 27th birthday, should be more than “just” a goalscorer.
As well as analysing where Kane is touching the ball, a closer look at his passing adds texture as to the sort of striker he is becoming and the picture that emerges is of someone moving the ball forward himself rather than simply waiting around the penalty box to pounce.

By grouping together similar passes based on their start and end locations, we can better understand the types of pass which Kane makes compared to other centre-forwards. This gives a bit more insight into the different types of passes that a player commonly makes and how different they are to others who play in the same position.
For example, the most common pass types that Kane attempts are below. Pass group 4 shows some of the shorter combination passes that he plays around the box. One are passes into and just outside of the opposition’s third, 23 are passes that go horizontally across the field and 11 are interior passes when he has the ball on the wing.
pass_types_kane_common-1-1024x796.png

Most common pass types are one thing but looking at those made which are most different to other strikers is far more illuminating.

Below are a sample of passes in each of the groups that Kane makes far more than the average striker. This shows both his long passing range but also how he links the play in midfield far more than most other strikers.
pass_types_kane_unique-1-1024x796.png

Pass groups 37 and 2 are those sweeping, cross-field switches that Kane has become well known for in recent seasons. Notably, though, he might not be as good at these passes as we think he is — passes in this group are completed at a rate of 73 per cent on average, whereas Kane completes his at just 41 per cent of the time.

Pass group 23 — those being played just outside the area — pops up again, showing that these are odd passes for a striker to be making so often. Kane is essentially attempting passes that are typically those made by a midfielder.

Doing so creates an issue in that it’s harder for him to sprint upfield and join in with the play he’s been stitching together. Potentially, with a more consistent progressive midfield structure, as Mourinho is trying to build, Kane can focus more on being on the end of attacks and not in the middle of them.
That’s certainly where some connected to Tottenham would like to see him. “He’s best leading the line as a focal point, right from the front,” Clive Allen, one of Spurs’ most clinical strikers ever, who once scored 49 goals in a season and a former coach of Kane, tells The Athletic. “But we’ve seen him dropping a little deeper and not being as effective. I’ve been through that myself and you restrict yourself by moving around the pitch. You see that with a lot of strikers.
“He’s shown great attitude towards the game and wanting to be involved but sometimes, it’s to the detriment of the team.”

From a purely selfish point of view, it’s been to Kane’s detriment too, given he has posted his lowest-ever non-penalty goals per 90 minutes this season. Lifting those numbers back towards that 2016-17 peak is one of Mourinho’s priorities.

Because as well as appreciating his all-round contributions, Mourinho’s main focus with Kane, The Athletic understands, is to maximise his goalscoring qualities and ensure he’s as efficient as possible in the box. There is also an appreciation that Kane’s presence in the box creates additional danger for opposition teams in the way it occupies opposition defenders and creates space for Spurs’ other attackers.

So it will be interesting to see whether Kane operates a bit further forward when the Premier League resumes. The signing of Steven Bergwijn since he last played may also mean he is afforded better service and doesn’t need to drop deep as frequently. Lo Celso’s emergence since January, meanwhile, should also reduce Kane’s need to operate in central midfield areas.
Another factor in Kane’s evolution has been the improvement of Son Heung-min, whose pace means the South Korea international can operate further up the pitch and stretch defences like a centre-forward would be expected to — allowing Kane to play between the lines at times.

Generally though, the temptation has been to point to Kane’s injury record as a reason for why he now plays less on the shoulder of the last defender. He’s never relied on searing pace — coming through the ranks at Tottenham, it was his hard, relentless running that made him stand out — but it would stand to reason that the clutch of injuries he’s suffered in the last few years have slowed him down.

Measuring that definitively is not easy but what we can do is offer a bit of context on the injuries he’s suffered and interrogate the idea that he misses enough games for it to be a cause for concern and influence the way he plays.

Looking at the bigger picture, Kane was available for 90 per cent of Tottenham’s Premier League matches from the start of the 2014-15 season until January 1 this year, when he suffered that hamstring injury against Southampton. In his five completed seasons in that period, he averaged 33 Premier League matches per season or 45 in all competitions. Throw in the England matches he has played in that period and it’s an average of 53 games a season, taking in two major tournaments and last year’s Nations League (the week after he had just returned from almost two months out to play in the Champions League final).
These are pretty healthy numbers and the pattern continues if we drill down to just the two most recent completed seasons. Kane played 59 matches in 2017-18 and 49 in 2018-19 for club and country. This season, he has made a total of 31 appearances already and, albeit with the help of the break, will likely end up with more than 40.
The other way of framing it is that Kane has missed 19 Premier League matches — effectively half a season — over the course of this season and last.

Overall though, the picture appears to be one of an overworked player suffering injuries and needing a break rather than necessarily anything more alarming. His Spurs and England team-mate Dele experienced something similar in the aftermath of the 2018 World Cup.
Hopefully, the current off-season will be to Kane’s benefit and in the longer term, if he is to stay at Spurs, then having a second striker who can allow him to get more of a rest will also make a big difference.

A return to full fitness will also be instructive in telling us whether his newer, deeper role is down to a desire to become a more complete centre-forward or a consequence of no longer being able to as consistently sprint past defenders.
The state of Kane’s fitness will also have a bearing on his future. He said in March that: “I’ve always said if I don’t feel we are progressing as a team or going in the right direction, I’m not one to stay there for the sake of it.” It was consistent with previous statements of his about the need for Tottenham to start winning trophies.

At the moment, the view among some in recruitment circles is that Kane needs to remain injury-free for an extended period after the restart to show that he has not lost any of the deadliness that has marked him out as one of Europe’s best strikers. Others believe that there is no market for Kane anyway given the perilous state of most European super-clubs’ finances. Then there is the issue for a club like Manchester United of being wary of trying to negotiate with Spurs chairman Daniel Levy.

The bottom line though is that Kane is contracted until 2024 and Spurs have no intention of selling him — even if some at the club were irritated by the timing of his interview in March, just as the devastating financial effects of the lockdown were becoming clear. “We are not going to discuss this or any player position whilst we focus on protecting the club and jobs and work with the council to support those affected by COVID-19,” a club spokesperson said at the time.

With Kane expected to stay at Spurs for a while yet, it may simply be that we have to get used to a slightly modified version of him. But with the right system in place, he doesn’t have to be less effective.
What’s clear though is that he cannot do it alone. Pep Guardiola once called Tottenham the “Harry Kane team” but evidently, he can only fully thrive with a functioning side behind him.

His team-mates and Mourinho must prove that this still exists at Spurs.
(Photo: Michael Regan – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)
 

dudu

Well-Known Member
Jan 28, 2011
5,314
11,048
Very in depth article which is worth reading

Such was Harry Kane’s meteoric rise for the five years after his Tottenham breakthrough, there was always a lingering fear that, at some point, he might have to slow down.

For some, that point has been reached already. The injuries, the slightly diminishing goal return and the apparent loss of a yard of pace have all been used as evidence to suggest Kane, still only 26, is not quite the force he once was. Jamie Carragher wrote in The Telegraph in April that Kane’s “physical statistics are dropping” and pointed to his recent injury record as cause for concern. In analytics circles, Kane’s dwindling shot output and reduced expected goals (xG) have been used as evidence of his decline.

So, with the Premier League edging towards a restart and Jose Mourinho confirming on Wednesday that Kane has shaken off his hamstring injury, it’s worth taking a deeper look at the numbers and context to assess Kane’s role, output and future at Spurs. The data shows him playing in a more withdrawn position this season, for instance, and is one of many elements to consider.
On the face of it, Kane’s reduced goalscoring numbers this season suggest that he is on the decline. Eleven Premier League goals is his lowest total since he became a regular for the club in 2014-15. That can, in large, be put down to the hamstring injury he suffered in January and the fact that there are nine matches of the season remaining. But even when we adjust the numbers to per 90 minutes played, this is still Kane’s worst campaign for Spurs when it comes to scoring non-penalty goals — contributing 0.46 per 90.

It’s also the case, however, that Kane and Spurs’ recent histories are tightly intertwined, and so it’s hard to know which way the causality runs: are Spurs worse because Kane’s dropped off or has Kane dropped off because Tottenham aren’t as good as they once were? Certainly, the tumult of this season and the transitional nature of the current team are not the ideal platform for a striker to prosper — though he has still managed to score 17 goals in 25 club appearances, so it’s important to keep any supposed “decline” in perspective. There’s always a degree to which we take such consistency for granted and pounce on any slight deviation.

To get a sense of how Kane’s output has changed over time, a look at his non-penalty goal and xG numbers in the last six years is revealing. A glance at the image below shows an obvious trend — he finds his rhythm and goes on a scoring tear in 2016-17 but the goals come down year-on-year after that, with a pretty precipitous drop after 2017-18.

kane_scoring-1024x1024.png

While his best season for getting into good goalscoring positions was 2017-18, we see what many already know — Kane’s an elite finisher and consistently “beats” xG. Whether that is something that is sustainable in his later years remains to be seen and although he is an excellent finisher, reducing the quality of chances he finds himself in naturally reduces the number of goals he can score.

With Spurs as a team, we see a similar story. They consistently beat xG but the goals peaked in 2016-17 and their xG has been on the slide since, bottoming out this season. Tottenham’s xG per game for 2019-20 so far is 1.26, which sees them as the 12th-best in the Premier League — in other words, a mid-table quality attack.
spurs_scoring-1-1024x1024.png

There’s been a similar downward trend in the volume of chances that both Spurs and Kane create. It’s notable that in Kane’s earlier seasons, Spurs were capable of creating plenty of shooting opportunities with Kane contributing a smaller amount — they were a better side overall and didn’t need to rely on an individual player to create chances for them.
spurs_shots-1024x717.png

Football is a team sport, so it’s hard to completely pin the reason for such a large change in output onto a single player. If Spurs were to put even a historically elite striker in the team, say Cristiano Ronaldo, it’s likely his excellent shot numbers would drop off also.

So if it’s hard to infer what’s happened to Kane through his own numbers, then let’s tackle this another way — how has the support he receives changed across the past few seasons?

Below is a table of all of the assists that Kane has received from team-mates in the past few years. They are not adjusted for changing minutes or goals scored but they paint an instructive picture regardless.
kane_assisters-823x1024.png

There’s been an evident drop-off in the number of assists but that’s to be expected given the goalscoring numbers have dropped off. Looking positionally across the pitch, we can see that the left-back position largely occupied by Danny Rose and Ben Davies has returned just a single assist for Kane in the last two seasons, and seven in the three seasons prior.

At right-back, Kieran Trippier provided Kane with 10 assists in three seasons, with his replacement Serge Aurier posting just one in the three seasons he’s been at the club. And although Aurier has played fewer minutes, his per 90 rate of 0.02 also pales in comparison to Trippier’s 0.17.

The primary sources of assists at the start of Kane’s Spurs career were Christian Eriksen and Dele Alli. Dele and Kane formed a great partnership in 2015-16 but Dele has provided just a single assist for Kane in the past couple of seasons. This is partly a consequence of Dele playing deeper during the latter period of Mauricio Pochettino’s reign. It is hoped that his return to the No 10 role under Mourinho will reignite his and Kane’s partnership.

It should also be pointed out that there’s more to chance creation than just assists. Players can create a great chance for a team-mate, only to see them miss the target or fail to score. Looking at chances created in isolation can give a bit more insight into the volume of chances but some notion of quality is required to get an even fuller picture.

Taking into account the quality of chances that are created, we can look at the expected assists — which in this instance, are the xG of key passes — that each player has created for Kane per 90 minutes. Below is how the chances are distributed across each season for Spurs.
2_all_kane_xa_adj-1024x1024.png

A handful of names stick out here but also the overall trend of fewer and fewer players able to provide Kane with decent service.
That’s illustrated best when comparing the side of 2015-16 to this season. Dele, Nacer Chadli, Erik Lamela and Eriksen four seasons ago were all creating chances that, in a full season, would expect them to each bag at least two assists.

Fast forward to 2019-20 and only the now-departed Eriksen has put up performances worth two or more assists over the course of a full season. When play resumes, Giovani Lo Celso will be expected to take on more of this Eriksen role. He has only posted one assist for the club but he registered five last season and only started playing regularly for Tottenham after Kane’s injury and once the side’s attacking options were drastically weakened.

What’s more concerning is the complete dearth of chances being created for Kane consistently from the full-back positions this season. While Trippier was a regular supplier for Kane, Aurier’s chances created for Kane are of much lower quality — even though he has provided the third-highest quality of chances for Kane this season.
So if Kane’s not being provided with as many chances, where is he spending his time?

From the graphic below, which shows how Kane’s touches have been split across the thirds of the pitch, this season represents career-highs for the share of touches in the defensive and middle thirds, and a career-low in the share of touches in the attacking third. This graphic illustrates what many have felt the eye test has shown — that Kane is dropping deeper and playing less as a classic No 9.
kane_touch_share_adj-1.png

This graphic, meanwhile, shows how Kane has moved even deeper since Mourinho took over in November.
kane_touch_share_mou_poch_adj-1-1024x614.png

On a couple of occasions in Mourinho’s early weeks in charge, he praised Kane for his all-round contribution, making it clear what he expected from his centre-forward. “Not just the goals; it’s the goals, the combination play, what he does between the lines, what he does in the defensive process, what he does at the leadership level,” Mourinho said after Kane’s two goals against Burnley in December’s 5-0 win.
He was similarly effusive after Kane had scored to help Spurs beat Brighton 2-1 a few weeks later. “He’s the kind of striker who is always fantastic, even when he’s not scoring. There are so many top scorers in the world who score so many goals but the day they don’t score, their performance is always poor because they give nothing.
“This (Kane) is the guy who if he doesn’t score, his performance is good. He presses, he recovers balls, he holds the ball, he assists, he drops back.”

The expectation that Mourinho was reinforcing here is that Kane, as he approaches his 27th birthday, should be more than “just” a goalscorer.
As well as analysing where Kane is touching the ball, a closer look at his passing adds texture as to the sort of striker he is becoming and the picture that emerges is of someone moving the ball forward himself rather than simply waiting around the penalty box to pounce.

By grouping together similar passes based on their start and end locations, we can better understand the types of pass which Kane makes compared to other centre-forwards. This gives a bit more insight into the different types of passes that a player commonly makes and how different they are to others who play in the same position.
For example, the most common pass types that Kane attempts are below. Pass group 4 shows some of the shorter combination passes that he plays around the box. One are passes into and just outside of the opposition’s third, 23 are passes that go horizontally across the field and 11 are interior passes when he has the ball on the wing.
pass_types_kane_common-1-1024x796.png

Most common pass types are one thing but looking at those made which are most different to other strikers is far more illuminating.

Below are a sample of passes in each of the groups that Kane makes far more than the average striker. This shows both his long passing range but also how he links the play in midfield far more than most other strikers.
pass_types_kane_unique-1-1024x796.png

Pass groups 37 and 2 are those sweeping, cross-field switches that Kane has become well known for in recent seasons. Notably, though, he might not be as good at these passes as we think he is — passes in this group are completed at a rate of 73 per cent on average, whereas Kane completes his at just 41 per cent of the time.

Pass group 23 — those being played just outside the area — pops up again, showing that these are odd passes for a striker to be making so often. Kane is essentially attempting passes that are typically those made by a midfielder.

Doing so creates an issue in that it’s harder for him to sprint upfield and join in with the play he’s been stitching together. Potentially, with a more consistent progressive midfield structure, as Mourinho is trying to build, Kane can focus more on being on the end of attacks and not in the middle of them.
That’s certainly where some connected to Tottenham would like to see him. “He’s best leading the line as a focal point, right from the front,” Clive Allen, one of Spurs’ most clinical strikers ever, who once scored 49 goals in a season and a former coach of Kane, tells The Athletic. “But we’ve seen him dropping a little deeper and not being as effective. I’ve been through that myself and you restrict yourself by moving around the pitch. You see that with a lot of strikers.
“He’s shown great attitude towards the game and wanting to be involved but sometimes, it’s to the detriment of the team.”

From a purely selfish point of view, it’s been to Kane’s detriment too, given he has posted his lowest-ever non-penalty goals per 90 minutes this season. Lifting those numbers back towards that 2016-17 peak is one of Mourinho’s priorities.

Because as well as appreciating his all-round contributions, Mourinho’s main focus with Kane, The Athletic understands, is to maximise his goalscoring qualities and ensure he’s as efficient as possible in the box. There is also an appreciation that Kane’s presence in the box creates additional danger for opposition teams in the way it occupies opposition defenders and creates space for Spurs’ other attackers.

So it will be interesting to see whether Kane operates a bit further forward when the Premier League resumes. The signing of Steven Bergwijn since he last played may also mean he is afforded better service and doesn’t need to drop deep as frequently. Lo Celso’s emergence since January, meanwhile, should also reduce Kane’s need to operate in central midfield areas.
Another factor in Kane’s evolution has been the improvement of Son Heung-min, whose pace means the South Korea international can operate further up the pitch and stretch defences like a centre-forward would be expected to — allowing Kane to play between the lines at times.

Generally though, the temptation has been to point to Kane’s injury record as a reason for why he now plays less on the shoulder of the last defender. He’s never relied on searing pace — coming through the ranks at Tottenham, it was his hard, relentless running that made him stand out — but it would stand to reason that the clutch of injuries he’s suffered in the last few years have slowed him down.

Measuring that definitively is not easy but what we can do is offer a bit of context on the injuries he’s suffered and interrogate the idea that he misses enough games for it to be a cause for concern and influence the way he plays.

Looking at the bigger picture, Kane was available for 90 per cent of Tottenham’s Premier League matches from the start of the 2014-15 season until January 1 this year, when he suffered that hamstring injury against Southampton. In his five completed seasons in that period, he averaged 33 Premier League matches per season or 45 in all competitions. Throw in the England matches he has played in that period and it’s an average of 53 games a season, taking in two major tournaments and last year’s Nations League (the week after he had just returned from almost two months out to play in the Champions League final).
These are pretty healthy numbers and the pattern continues if we drill down to just the two most recent completed seasons. Kane played 59 matches in 2017-18 and 49 in 2018-19 for club and country. This season, he has made a total of 31 appearances already and, albeit with the help of the break, will likely end up with more than 40.
The other way of framing it is that Kane has missed 19 Premier League matches — effectively half a season — over the course of this season and last.

Overall though, the picture appears to be one of an overworked player suffering injuries and needing a break rather than necessarily anything more alarming. His Spurs and England team-mate Dele experienced something similar in the aftermath of the 2018 World Cup.
Hopefully, the current off-season will be to Kane’s benefit and in the longer term, if he is to stay at Spurs, then having a second striker who can allow him to get more of a rest will also make a big difference.

A return to full fitness will also be instructive in telling us whether his newer, deeper role is down to a desire to become a more complete centre-forward or a consequence of no longer being able to as consistently sprint past defenders.
The state of Kane’s fitness will also have a bearing on his future. He said in March that: “I’ve always said if I don’t feel we are progressing as a team or going in the right direction, I’m not one to stay there for the sake of it.” It was consistent with previous statements of his about the need for Tottenham to start winning trophies.

At the moment, the view among some in recruitment circles is that Kane needs to remain injury-free for an extended period after the restart to show that he has not lost any of the deadliness that has marked him out as one of Europe’s best strikers. Others believe that there is no market for Kane anyway given the perilous state of most European super-clubs’ finances. Then there is the issue for a club like Manchester United of being wary of trying to negotiate with Spurs chairman Daniel Levy.

The bottom line though is that Kane is contracted until 2024 and Spurs have no intention of selling him — even if some at the club were irritated by the timing of his interview in March, just as the devastating financial effects of the lockdown were becoming clear. “We are not going to discuss this or any player position whilst we focus on protecting the club and jobs and work with the council to support those affected by COVID-19,” a club spokesperson said at the time.

With Kane expected to stay at Spurs for a while yet, it may simply be that we have to get used to a slightly modified version of him. But with the right system in place, he doesn’t have to be less effective.
What’s clear though is that he cannot do it alone. Pep Guardiola once called Tottenham the “Harry Kane team” but evidently, he can only fully thrive with a functioning side behind him.

His team-mates and Mourinho must prove that this still exists at Spurs.
(Photo: Michael Regan – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)

In short.

Harry needs better functioning midfield behind him to provide better service.
 

Gilzeanking

Well-Known Member
May 7, 2005
6,093
5,019
Kane needs to remain injury-free for an extended period after the restart to show that he has not lost any of the deadliness that has marked him out as one of Europe’s best strikers.

This is the big pressure on the poor man . If he has another major injury problem soon it would be disastrous, especially a hammy . As Owen recently admitted he'd never sprint for fear of his hammy going again . This has to impact on Kane's match performances .
 

SPURSLIFE

Well-Known Member
Jul 21, 2011
1,578
2,132
To me he's still the best all round striker in the PL and the second best in Europe behind Messi. An injury free season and a good MF behind him will see him back 20 to 30 goals a season. It's not just his scoring ability, left or right foot great header of a ball but I believe he's added so much more to his game. His ability to accurately pass a ball 30 or 40 yards and to quickly see a team mate in a scoring position with a quick ball through. He's played a lot deeper because he hasn't been able to rely on his midfield in the past couple of seasons. I for one am looking forward to his partnership with Lo Celso if he continues where he left off before the lockdown.
So there's a lot to look forward to and these last few weeks of the season can give us some idea of what to expect for the start of the new season.
 

GMI

G.
Dec 13, 2006
3,090
12,122
I blame Filip Lesniak.
They were discussing this on the Spurs Podcast (View From the Lane) yesterday, which is a good listen actually. They compared Lesniak's assist per minutes ratio to another legend, Jamie Slabber. Was quite amusing I must admit. I thought it was shamefull that Jack Pitt-Brook hadn't heard of either player...
 

Archibald&Crooks

Aegina Expat
Admin
Feb 1, 2005
55,533
204,721
Maybe the Mods should take that thread out of transfer rumours? I have no idea why it's moved there, its a joke really. @Archibald&Crooks ?
It was moved there because, like every other 'player watch' thread that's moved there, there was a transfer rumour about him at the time.

This joke you're on about...........it's too high brow for me I guess :D

Anyway, i've moved it back but if (when) there's another transfer rumour about him and it goes back into the Transfer Rumours forum pop me over the punchline when you get a minute :playful:
 

DiVaio

Well-Known Member
May 27, 2020
4,173
17,393
Aarons, good defensive midfielder, Bergwijn over Lucas in the first squad and he will score +30 goals in the league again.
 

Gbspurs

Gatekeeper for debates, King of the plonkers
Jan 27, 2011
26,945
61,824
It was moved there because, like every other 'player watch' thread that's moved there, there was a transfer rumour about him at the time.

This joke you're on about...........it's too high brow for me I guess :D

Anyway, i've moved it back but if (when) there's another transfer rumour about him and it goes back into the Transfer Rumours forum pop me over the punchline when you get a minute :playful:

Surely your best players always have rumours about them? I guess we all suffer from a small club mentality of assuming that as soon as someone is interested in our players they are likely to go.

Unless Kane comes out and says he is leaving or the club transfer list him then he should stay in Spurs chat I feel.

It's mainly to annoy people banned from the transfer forums :)

In that case I'm getting off my soapbox!
 

dtxspurs

Welcome to the Good Life
Dec 28, 2017
11,234
46,574
Aarons, good defensive midfielder, Bergwijn over Lucas in the first squad and he will score +30 goals in the league again.
I don’t think he’ll stay healthy enough to score 30 goals in the league again.
 

Spartanspurs

Well-Known Member
Jul 2, 2013
426
1,862
I don’t think he’ll stay healthy enough to score 30 goals in the league again.
I think it's too early to be saying that. Most of his injuries were from heavy tackles and not a recurrence of a previous injury. It's clear he needed a long rest, which he's now got, so it'll be a case of wait, see and hope for a bit of luck.
 
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