Harry Kane

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Harry Kane's problem for England and Spurs is not psychological – it is physical​

Kane is a shadow of the player he was in 2017 and 2018 and there are doubts over whether he can rediscover that level again
SAM WALLACE
CHIEF FOOTBALL WRITER

That difficult Harry Kane autumn period is here again when early season struggles tend to be followed closely by a winter renaissance and, come the new year, no-one can recall why there was any concern at all about the greatest English goalscorer of his generation.
With the classic Kane cycle of fortune in mind perhaps he will also hit form next year just as England embark on the group stages of the World Cup finals at the start of November, although there was not much encouragement at Wembley on Tuesday night. This was one of the Kane nights when he looks more like the player he might have been. That being the Kane on the other side of the mirror who never took his chance at Spurs and slipped off into a solid, if unremarkable career jousting with Football League centre-halves, ending up as a much-loved, if often frustrating, club legend at somewhere like MK Dons or Lincoln City.
As with his predecessor Wayne Rooney, when the physical conditioning is not quite at its optimum, so the other parts of Kane’s game crumble too. Sooner or later one supposes that the stars will align and Kane will register the first of many Premier League goals and assists this season. He was top for both in the league last season and as such there can be no arguing with the numbers. Kane coming good is a staple of the early Premier League season, an annual metamorphosis which never quite loses its capacity to astound as the chrysalis splits and the great goalscorer emerges. The only question being why he needs to go through it every time.
Great Spurs years of the modern era were unquestionably under Mauricio Pochettino and his assistant Jesus Perez, who pushed Kane physically with an intense style of training that has never been replicated since their departure. The high points were arguably in those two seasons of 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 when Kane’s goalscoring was at an astonishing level. He was a much younger man then but also one who trained differently under a different manager.
Kane’s declining returns
In the Champions League before Christmas that season, Spurs had a striker who dominated the defences he came up against at Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund. Kane was at his best as a goalscorer and a creator of goals when he was in the kind of condition that made him impossible to stop physically. He took up better positions. He won headers. He won the ball back when his team lost it.
The measure of those parts of his game - duels won every 90 minutes, recoveries, headers won - have remained steady, like the goals and assists over the last three seasons up until the fall-off in the current campaign. Last season he won more duels per 90 minutes – an average of 6.1 per 90 minutes in the league – than any other previous campaign. His recovery of the ball was at 2.6 per 90 minutes, the highest since the 2015-2016 season. He has found ways of coping with the change in training regime as he has got older. But on nights like Tuesday, he can still seem a long way off.
Even under Pochettino, Kane has always started slowly and his delayed return to training – and quarantine - this summer after a holiday seems to have extended that period. Kane was at pains to point out on Tuesday night that he has already scored nine goals this season for his club. The quibble being that they have come against the likes of NS Mura, Pacos de Ferreira and Andorra. No-one is doubting that the eye for goal is there. The question is that as he gets older what kind of Kane one might get – the great striker or the striker still playing his way into great form?
The Pochettino regime was unrelenting in its conditioning of Spurs’ players and Kane was arguably its greatest beneficiary. He remains the kind of player who prepares thoroughly for training and stays behind afterwards to practice penalties and free-kicks. It is the part in between that is the key component and whether Nuno Espirito Santo and his staff can guide a 28-year-old star of the game back to the kind of physical shape that launched his career under Pochettino.
The volatility of form goes throughout the Spurs team. They can be good in one half, as they were against Chelsea, and then suffer a big falling-off after the break. For Kane himself, and especially with England, there is much less scope now in his career to accommodate those fallow periods. Come the World Cup in December next year he cannot afford to have the kind of indifferent form that saw the Euro 2020 final largely pass him by in July. He remains a great goalscorer – just not a great goalscorer all the time.
At the level at which Kane operates, the standard is unforgiving. Karim Benzema and Kylian Mbappe turned around the Nations League final for France largely with their own matchwinning prowess. If England are to be successful it is that which they will also need from their captain and leading goalscorer at times when the margins are very fine.
For his own sanity, Kane has developed ways of dealing with the pressure, and his quiet resolution has seen him through many challenging times. “No need to panic,” he said after Tuesday’s draw with Hungary. “I am confident in myself, confident in the teams I play in”. He was, Kane said, “in a good place” with all the suggestion that he is over the Manchester City transfer that never happened and the strong sense that the Premier League champions never pushed that hard for him.
Kane will believe that he is scrutinised too much. Others will feel that it is simply not enough and that his substitution at Wembley as England chased a winner was overdue. There will be a game soon where he looks like the Kane of 2017 and 2018 and a lot of the doubts vanish. The question is whether he will be able to summon that form when it most matters, rather than hoping it simply arrives on time.
 
(If you turn off javascript in your browser settings you can read the article on the site)

--------


Harry Kane's problem for England and Spurs is not psychological – it is physical​

Kane is a shadow of the player he was in 2017 and 2018 and there are doubts over whether he can rediscover that level again
SAM WALLACE
CHIEF FOOTBALL WRITER

That difficult Harry Kane autumn period is here again when early season struggles tend to be followed closely by a winter renaissance and, come the new year, no-one can recall why there was any concern at all about the greatest English goalscorer of his generation.
With the classic Kane cycle of fortune in mind perhaps he will also hit form next year just as England embark on the group stages of the World Cup finals at the start of November, although there was not much encouragement at Wembley on Tuesday night. This was one of the Kane nights when he looks more like the player he might have been. That being the Kane on the other side of the mirror who never took his chance at Spurs and slipped off into a solid, if unremarkable career jousting with Football League centre-halves, ending up as a much-loved, if often frustrating, club legend at somewhere like MK Dons or Lincoln City.
As with his predecessor Wayne Rooney, when the physical conditioning is not quite at its optimum, so the other parts of Kane’s game crumble too. Sooner or later one supposes that the stars will align and Kane will register the first of many Premier League goals and assists this season. He was top for both in the league last season and as such there can be no arguing with the numbers. Kane coming good is a staple of the early Premier League season, an annual metamorphosis which never quite loses its capacity to astound as the chrysalis splits and the great goalscorer emerges. The only question being why he needs to go through it every time.
Great Spurs years of the modern era were unquestionably under Mauricio Pochettino and his assistant Jesus Perez, who pushed Kane physically with an intense style of training that has never been replicated since their departure. The high points were arguably in those two seasons of 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 when Kane’s goalscoring was at an astonishing level. He was a much younger man then but also one who trained differently under a different manager.
Kane’s declining returns
In the Champions League before Christmas that season, Spurs had a striker who dominated the defences he came up against at Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund. Kane was at his best as a goalscorer and a creator of goals when he was in the kind of condition that made him impossible to stop physically. He took up better positions. He won headers. He won the ball back when his team lost it.
The measure of those parts of his game - duels won every 90 minutes, recoveries, headers won - have remained steady, like the goals and assists over the last three seasons up until the fall-off in the current campaign. Last season he won more duels per 90 minutes – an average of 6.1 per 90 minutes in the league – than any other previous campaign. His recovery of the ball was at 2.6 per 90 minutes, the highest since the 2015-2016 season. He has found ways of coping with the change in training regime as he has got older. But on nights like Tuesday, he can still seem a long way off.
Even under Pochettino, Kane has always started slowly and his delayed return to training – and quarantine - this summer after a holiday seems to have extended that period. Kane was at pains to point out on Tuesday night that he has already scored nine goals this season for his club. The quibble being that they have come against the likes of NS Mura, Pacos de Ferreira and Andorra. No-one is doubting that the eye for goal is there. The question is that as he gets older what kind of Kane one might get – the great striker or the striker still playing his way into great form?
The Pochettino regime was unrelenting in its conditioning of Spurs’ players and Kane was arguably its greatest beneficiary. He remains the kind of player who prepares thoroughly for training and stays behind afterwards to practice penalties and free-kicks. It is the part in between that is the key component and whether Nuno Espirito Santo and his staff can guide a 28-year-old star of the game back to the kind of physical shape that launched his career under Pochettino.
The volatility of form goes throughout the Spurs team. They can be good in one half, as they were against Chelsea, and then suffer a big falling-off after the break. For Kane himself, and especially with England, there is much less scope now in his career to accommodate those fallow periods. Come the World Cup in December next year he cannot afford to have the kind of indifferent form that saw the Euro 2020 final largely pass him by in July. He remains a great goalscorer – just not a great goalscorer all the time.
At the level at which Kane operates, the standard is unforgiving. Karim Benzema and Kylian Mbappe turned around the Nations League final for France largely with their own matchwinning prowess. If England are to be successful it is that which they will also need from their captain and leading goalscorer at times when the margins are very fine.
For his own sanity, Kane has developed ways of dealing with the pressure, and his quiet resolution has seen him through many challenging times. “No need to panic,” he said after Tuesday’s draw with Hungary. “I am confident in myself, confident in the teams I play in”. He was, Kane said, “in a good place” with all the suggestion that he is over the Manchester City transfer that never happened and the strong sense that the Premier League champions never pushed that hard for him.
Kane will believe that he is scrutinised too much. Others will feel that it is simply not enough and that his substitution at Wembley as England chased a winner was overdue. There will be a game soon where he looks like the Kane of 2017 and 2018 and a lot of the doubts vanish. The question is whether he will be able to summon that form when it most matters, rather than hoping it simply arrives on time.

A good write-up, analysis and read.

The guy should by now have been moving closer to Shearer's astonishing Premier League record.

He should have been wondering where the club would place the statue of him after somehow guiding us to trophies.

Instead he is in the middle of a tainted (maybe irreparably) legacy.

He has a very small window to retrieve it all and I hope he reads the article and in particular the bit about how hard City pushed for him. They didn't.

Watching Tuesday's game you could see why they chose to spend 100 million on Grealish and baulked at paying the reported 150 million for Kane. Up to Kane to show they made a mistake and then to tell them to fcuk off.

He may give us a reminder of the Kane we remember on Sunday. I certainly hope he does.
 
(If you turn off javascript in your browser settings you can read the article on the site)

--------


Harry Kane's problem for England and Spurs is not psychological – it is physical​

Kane is a shadow of the player he was in 2017 and 2018 and there are doubts over whether he can rediscover that level again
SAM WALLACE
CHIEF FOOTBALL WRITER

That difficult Harry Kane autumn period is here again when early season struggles tend to be followed closely by a winter renaissance and, come the new year, no-one can recall why there was any concern at all about the greatest English goalscorer of his generation.
With the classic Kane cycle of fortune in mind perhaps he will also hit form next year just as England embark on the group stages of the World Cup finals at the start of November, although there was not much encouragement at Wembley on Tuesday night. This was one of the Kane nights when he looks more like the player he might have been. That being the Kane on the other side of the mirror who never took his chance at Spurs and slipped off into a solid, if unremarkable career jousting with Football League centre-halves, ending up as a much-loved, if often frustrating, club legend at somewhere like MK Dons or Lincoln City.
As with his predecessor Wayne Rooney, when the physical conditioning is not quite at its optimum, so the other parts of Kane’s game crumble too. Sooner or later one supposes that the stars will align and Kane will register the first of many Premier League goals and assists this season. He was top for both in the league last season and as such there can be no arguing with the numbers. Kane coming good is a staple of the early Premier League season, an annual metamorphosis which never quite loses its capacity to astound as the chrysalis splits and the great goalscorer emerges. The only question being why he needs to go through it every time.
Great Spurs years of the modern era were unquestionably under Mauricio Pochettino and his assistant Jesus Perez, who pushed Kane physically with an intense style of training that has never been replicated since their departure. The high points were arguably in those two seasons of 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 when Kane’s goalscoring was at an astonishing level. He was a much younger man then but also one who trained differently under a different manager.
Kane’s declining returns
In the Champions League before Christmas that season, Spurs had a striker who dominated the defences he came up against at Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund. Kane was at his best as a goalscorer and a creator of goals when he was in the kind of condition that made him impossible to stop physically. He took up better positions. He won headers. He won the ball back when his team lost it.
The measure of those parts of his game - duels won every 90 minutes, recoveries, headers won - have remained steady, like the goals and assists over the last three seasons up until the fall-off in the current campaign. Last season he won more duels per 90 minutes – an average of 6.1 per 90 minutes in the league – than any other previous campaign. His recovery of the ball was at 2.6 per 90 minutes, the highest since the 2015-2016 season. He has found ways of coping with the change in training regime as he has got older. But on nights like Tuesday, he can still seem a long way off.
Even under Pochettino, Kane has always started slowly and his delayed return to training – and quarantine - this summer after a holiday seems to have extended that period. Kane was at pains to point out on Tuesday night that he has already scored nine goals this season for his club. The quibble being that they have come against the likes of NS Mura, Pacos de Ferreira and Andorra. No-one is doubting that the eye for goal is there. The question is that as he gets older what kind of Kane one might get – the great striker or the striker still playing his way into great form?
The Pochettino regime was unrelenting in its conditioning of Spurs’ players and Kane was arguably its greatest beneficiary. He remains the kind of player who prepares thoroughly for training and stays behind afterwards to practice penalties and free-kicks. It is the part in between that is the key component and whether Nuno Espirito Santo and his staff can guide a 28-year-old star of the game back to the kind of physical shape that launched his career under Pochettino.
The volatility of form goes throughout the Spurs team. They can be good in one half, as they were against Chelsea, and then suffer a big falling-off after the break. For Kane himself, and especially with England, there is much less scope now in his career to accommodate those fallow periods. Come the World Cup in December next year he cannot afford to have the kind of indifferent form that saw the Euro 2020 final largely pass him by in July. He remains a great goalscorer – just not a great goalscorer all the time.
At the level at which Kane operates, the standard is unforgiving. Karim Benzema and Kylian Mbappe turned around the Nations League final for France largely with their own matchwinning prowess. If England are to be successful it is that which they will also need from their captain and leading goalscorer at times when the margins are very fine.
For his own sanity, Kane has developed ways of dealing with the pressure, and his quiet resolution has seen him through many challenging times. “No need to panic,” he said after Tuesday’s draw with Hungary. “I am confident in myself, confident in the teams I play in”. He was, Kane said, “in a good place” with all the suggestion that he is over the Manchester City transfer that never happened and the strong sense that the Premier League champions never pushed that hard for him.
Kane will believe that he is scrutinised too much. Others will feel that it is simply not enough and that his substitution at Wembley as England chased a winner was overdue. There will be a game soon where he looks like the Kane of 2017 and 2018 and a lot of the doubts vanish. The question is whether he will be able to summon that form when it most matters, rather than hoping it simply arrives on time.
It is a fair take grounded in reality. But it is probably a bit of both. He's obviously been affected mentally by the transfer saga. He's human, he's bound to have been. But the lack of pre season obviously also plays a factor. But to claim that he hasn't been psychologically effected by the transfer circus is naive.
 
iz futbal iz futbal CroSpurs CroSpurs

What are you disagreeing with?

18-19 Spurs POTY - Son
19-20 Spurs POTY - Son
20-21 Spurs POTY - Kane
21-22 Spurs POTY - Likely Son, unless Winks decides to show his WC ability

Since 2018, Son's been a step above Kane and our voting shows that. He deserves every honor.

And 2 goals for Kane against the big 5 teams since the beginning of last season is not good. He's a flat track bully.
We were shit in the league in 18-19. CL run was the only good thing about it and without Lucas vs Barcelona we dont even get out of the group stages (also without Lucas vs Ajax, we dont reach the final). And without Lucas starting but with kane and son and everyone else, we lost the final. I'd go for him over Son in that year as Lucas had 15 goals in PL+CL and son 16, almost the same but Lucas made the difference when it mattered most.
 
iz futbal iz futbal CroSpurs CroSpurs

What are you disagreeing with?

18-19 Spurs POTY - Son
19-20 Spurs POTY - Son
20-21 Spurs POTY - Kane
21-22 Spurs POTY - Likely Son, unless Winks decides to show his WC ability

Since 2018, Son's been a step above Kane and our voting shows that. He deserves every honor.

And 2 goals for Kane against the big 5 teams since the beginning of last season is not good. He's a flat track bully.
Son could sit the whole season out and his fanbase, which is almost entirely separate to the Spurs fan base, would still vote for him.
 
Not sure why theres any animosity towards Son in the Son v Kane debate

From day one he had to play second fiddle to either Kane or Dele even though he could outperform both on occasion.
Always him subbed off first if he did start too, ruined Dortmund in the CL while Dele was suspended, dropped in the PL for Dele though.

Never said a word, gives absolutely everything every minute and looks genuinely tearful if he plays poorly.

People are quick to ask where we’d be without Kane’s goals, well where would we be with Sons endeavor, attitude, team spirit, happiness, dedication, goals (73) and assists (44)

Kane has 38 assists in 7000 (seven thousand) more playing minutes for us. But that’s his specialty apparently.

If one had to leave, you’d have to be an idiot to choose Son.
Without goals, Kane is nothing.
Without goals, Son still has a shit load going for him
 
Son will likely be our player of the year 3 of the last 4 years.

Don't get me wrong, I think Kane's still a great flat track bully but Son is just a step above.

Tired Mr P GIF by @ICT_MrP
 
£50m for Walker, leaving on our terms is not necessarily bad business sense, failing to adequately replace him is. We've spent more than that fee on right backs and are worse off. That's the poor decision (s).

Whatever we get for Kane (if he goes), we won't replace his optimum output for that fee.

We won’t replace Kane’s goal output again from a single striker for a generation. If we do it’s pure luck, the numbers he’s put up in his career illustrate that perfectly.

Another Keane, Defoe, Sheringham is much more likely and while not disastrous, it’s not on the same level as Kane at all.
 
We won’t replace Kane’s goal output again from a single striker for a generation. If we do it’s pure luck, the numbers he’s put up in his career illustrate that perfectly.

Another Keane, Defoe, Sheringham is much more likely and while not disastrous, it’s not on the same level as Kane at all.
People who want Kane replaced with one player are guaranteed to be disappointed.

If we are smart we look to do what Liverpool did post Coutinho, and re tool their attack around a set of players instead of one superior one.
 
People who want Kane replaced with one player are guaranteed to be disappointed.

If we are smart we look to do what Liverpool did post Coutinho, and re tool their attack around a set of players instead of one superior one.

£140m back then stood to do a LOT more than £75m would do today.

Allison £67m
VVD £75m
= £142m
 
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