Hindsight is 20 20 I suppose but a fully interested Vlahovic with Gil Son and maybe another creative mid around him is better then a 1/4 arsed Kane and a unfit GLC and Ndombele sat behind him and a 30ish million price hit
The gamble off keeping Modric and Bale paid off so I can see why we took it but Harry really doesn't seem to fussed and seems physically unable to press due to his paper ankles
So approx half of Kane's playing carreer he's been criticized for his style, his style being someone with an odd running gate, he has a low knee lift, so his running action is flat, it looks odd:
1. At the beginning it was "he's too slow, not athletic enough". This stuck with none Spurs fans who only go to see him on MoTD but Spurs fans got used to it whilst he banged in the goals at a rate not seen since Jimmy Greaves.
2. Even when we pressed high under Poch Kane, which Kane was active in, Poch still have him take CB's out to the wings (he wasn't a regular number 9, never playing the width of the posts and would often been found outside of the box too)
3. The first signs of our press dropping was we stopped pressing the 'Keeper, only us and City pressed the 'keeper (LFC's press was always 2nd phase of the ball slightly deeper, a counter-press rather than a high-press) but this was the first signs of it slowing and at the time it was clear it was designed to save Kane who was at this stage playing a lot of football with Club and Country (who copied how we played and pressed high too and had over 50% of the team made up of Spurs players, that's a shit load of pressing across a full season with no break!!)
4. Kane is a brilliant number 10, still it seems a lot of people forget this, he's better than Teddy was. The difference between the two is that Teddy just played this role, wasn't asked to be the 9. He had other runners and the team wasn't a pressing team (more a counter-attacking team, same as Utd in approach but obviously nowhere near as good).
5. The narrative around him now is so predictable it's is child's level analysis. After him not getting his move every game he doesn't score (remember the years he never scored in Aug??) something has to have a meaning in the media, in this case it's because he's sulking. I say bullshit!
6. He's playing in what is effectively a new team with a new manager. All trying to reinvent themselves and how to play off the back of absolute turd for over 2 seasons. We've pushed the reset button and this is what it looks like. Also really important to mention that no team was as unfit as our for the past two seasons with the dinosaur doing away with our physical training (glad it's back, it's already looking better but still a long way to go - it took Utd TWO seasons to build the player's fitness levels back post dinosaur!!!).
7. Back to Kane specifically on fitness, he missed pre-season, which was supposed to be brutal and back in the mould of Poch's double/triple session days - a look at those who were present for it, it actually shows, look at Dele, Dier and Sanchez all on their toes. Kane will NEVER look on his toes because he never runs on them due to his weird running gate, so we now go full circle. He's not as fit as some because a) the dinosaur non-existant physical training b) he's not had the benefit of pre-season c) he's never looked like the player zipping about although he was super fit presser under Poch (just aesthetically different compared to those around him gave a different impression).
8. When he's fit he can still be effective in us pressing high, just as he was under Poch. I don't believe at 28 he'll replicate that (his ankles have nothing to do with how he runs or presses, in fact, they are more pliable, more supple as the ligament damage would have caused them to stretch, that's it, it doesn't impede on any action at all).
Really sorry for the longwinded answer here as there are lots of things at play but we are at a similar point where we were when Poch first came in, the transition from old to a new team, the forming of a new identity (this is a tad unknown as Nuno doesn't really have one and as an optimist, I want to pin my hat onto the first half of the Chav game and hope that was the identity we are building towards).
Igula ????
