Article: How Good is Harry Kane? by Jonathan Lewis MFF Sports Writer
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By Jonathan Lewis | 17th NOV 2021
With his exceptional international week, the England Captain, Harry Kane, once again broke yet more records. He is now England’s most prolific goal scorer in competitive games having taken over Wayne Rooney’s 37 goal return. Then a few days later, Kane just went on by equaling Ian Wright’s record of 4 goals in a single match, he did so in a single half to be precise, albeit against San Marino, incidentally the same team Ian Wright scored his four goals too.
At the age of 28, he is regarded for some years now as one of the top strikers in the world. Yet, some pundits and fans alike still label him as a ‘nearly man’, having nearly won the Champions League with Tottenham Hotspur only to come up short against Liverpool and then two years later, narrowly losing the Euro 2020 Final to Italy, this time on penalties.
It may surprise our readers that to this day he is yet to win any major trophy, for club and country. But why, having such a talent for finding the back of the net, is it a lack of ambition shown to him by the Tottenham Hotspur owner in buying additional players or is it just a case of being unlucky?
Either way, last summer’s transfer saga when Kane was adamant he wanted to leave Tottenham Hotspur o fellow Premier League club Manchester City, who were rumoured to have tabled a bid in excess of £100 million only to be met with the sternest reluctance by Tottenham Hotspur Chairman, Daniel Levy, left a lot of questions unanswered even though many betting picks for his departure were soaring through the roof during the summer months pre- and post the Euro Finals after his infamous golf course interview with Gary Neville.
So much so that, even though Tottenham Hotspur beat Manchester City on the first game of the 2021/22 season (without Kane), he only managed one goal in the league, by mid-November. Contrast that with his 16 goals for England in 2021 after a double hat-trick in the World Cup qualifiers in which he scored 7 goals in two games and the question remains, how good is Harry Kane?
To answer that objectively we have to consider two main factors, first, how good are the players around him and by that we mean does he get the service he needs in order to deliver the goals we all know he is capable of? Second, is he mentally the same person he was for Tottenham Hotspur a season ago under Jose Mourinho and Ryan Mason when he won the golden boot for most goals in the league as well as most assists in the league? The obvious answer to that lies in his failed exit out of Tottenham Hotspur even though he is still contracted for another three years to the North London club.
It goes without say, this season his league form for Tottenham Hotspur is no-where near the player we were used to seeing. That could be in part due to the failed attempt to land a successor to Jose following his dismissal days before Tottenham Hotspur were facing Manchester City in last season’s League Cup final. It was three weeks before the start of the 2021/22 season that former Wolves head coach, Nuno Espirito Santo, was announced as the new head coach of Tottenham Hotspur.
We all know how that ended up for Nuno, 5 wins and 5 losses and he was shown the door, even though he picked up the best manager in the Premier League award for the month of August when Tottenham Hotspur were sitting at the top of the table after three wins out of three. Now, Tottenham Hotspur have ‘serial winner’ Antonio Conte as their head coach, since the appointment of the former Chelsea head coach, Kane has publicly stated his satisfaction with the appointment. Leading many to believe that perhaps this will help him find his form and moreover believe in his own abilities to be one of the most prolific goal scorers in the league yet again.
Jonathan Lewis is an MFF sports writer
