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Ex-Spurs Player Harry Kane

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So why are you crying for a second striker if you will only use him to bench Kane? or did you not mean that when you said it has been a problem for years?

What the feck did you mean? We do need two strikers or we just need a reserve striker? make your mind up ......

A second striker would not be used to bench Kane, it would be used to give Kane a rest, come on late when down a goal, play when Kane or Son is injured, give Conte options.

It is why every other club in the world has two or more options.
 
A second striker would not be used to bench Kane, it would be used to give Kane a rest, come on late when down a goal, play when Kane or Son is injured, give Conte options.

It is why every other club in the world has two or more options.
If that's what you would like to happen a second striker to give Kane/Son a rest more or less then would Bergwijn not an option for you? Does it have to a striker? I don't mean only play Bergwijn to give Kane/Son a rest as Conte can play him wherever he chooses to. Why not give other attackers to fill in this role from time to time especially against lesser competition? I get that our other attackers besides Kane/Son haven't proven much in terms of being a goal threat but thing are changing under Conte.

My point is who really wants to go to a club as a designated backup striker? Wouldn't Spurs be better off using that money to sign a player who's going to feature in the starting 11?
 
A second striker would not be used to bench Kane, it would be used to give Kane a rest, come on late when down a goal, play when Kane or Son is injured, give Conte options.

It is why every other club in the world has two or more options.
So we don't have two or more options? are you sure you're a Spurs fan?

Here is the list of registered players who are designated as playing in attack - Son, Gil, Bergwijn, Moura, Clarke, Kane, Dele plus White and Scarlett .... so we do have many options, maybe you just don't think any of then are good enough, which is a different point.

FYI - Man City only have Jesus as a centre-forward in their squad, and he's not a guaranteed starter - guess they are from another planet?

If you don't believe any from Son, Gil, Bergwijn, Moura, Clarke, Kane, Dele plus White and Scarlett can come on late when down a goal, play when Kane or Son is injured, give Conte options. That's your call, again have to ask are you sure you support these players?

No question a backup striker is needed, but a goal scoring midfielder who plays 90 minutes, not a player who "comes on late when down a goal, plays when Kane or Son is injured, give Conte options" that signing would be far more important.
 
If that's what you would like to happen a second striker to give Kane/Son a rest more or less then would Bergwijn not an option for you? Does it have to a striker? I don't mean only play Bergwijn to give Kane/Son a rest as Conte can play him wherever he chooses to. Why not give other attackers to fill in this role from time to time especially against lesser competition? I get that our other attackers besides Kane/Son haven't proven much in terms of being a goal threat but thing are changing under Conte.

My point is who really wants to go to a club as a designated backup striker? Wouldn't Spurs be better off using that money to sign a player who's going to feature in the starting 11?

Bergwijn doesn’t score near enough to fill that role, especially in the PL. He isn’t a viable option to Kane if Kane is injured, doesn’t offer a threat late in games if we are down a goal and doesn’t offer Conte options to change things.

Lots of guys go to clubs to be back-ups which is why every club has those players. They also don’t have to be a straight back-up. This season alone they would have started the first two PL games, if not more, played in multiple ECL games, had chances in our Carabao Cup games. That is a ton of opportunities without taking into account that they could have started over Kane during this slow period.

There is no reason the club can’t buy a back-up striker and players for the starting 11, every other club in the world does it, Spurs aren’t a special case that can’t.
 
So we don't have two or more options? are you sure you're a Spurs fan?

Here is the list of registered players who are designated as playing in attack - Son, Gil, Bergwijn, Moura, Clarke, Kane, Dele plus White and Scarlett .... so we do have many options, maybe you just don't think any of then are good enough, which is a different point.

FYI - Man City only have Jesus as a centre-forward in their squad, and he's not a guaranteed starter - guess they are from another planet?

If you don't believe any from Son, Gil, Bergwijn, Moura, Clarke, Kane, Dele plus White and Scarlett can come on late when down a goal, play when Kane or Son is injured, give Conte options. That's your call, again have to ask are you sure you support these players?

No question a backup striker is needed, but a goal scoring midfielder who plays 90 minutes, not a player who "comes on late when down a goal, plays when Kane or Son is injured, give Conte options" that signing would be far more important.

No we don’t, the guys listed are not strikers and have little to no scoring ability.

If you think that any of the dogshit you listed can come in to score Kate then you are an idiot.

Jack Clarke??? Bryan Gil??? Are you ducking serious this is who you think should be coming on late in the PL when we are down a goal? What a joke.
 
Agree to an extent.

If Kane looks like he is giving his all then frankly then goals as important as they are, come second.

A player not committed to the cause does more damage than one who fails to score for a few games.

Well he sure wasn't committed some weeks ago when we had Espirito Santo in charge, but who can really blame him? He only wanted to leave in the first place because of a lack of ambition on our part. And we then went and appointed a sacked Wolves manager which completely justified his words.
 
No we don’t, the guys listed are not strikers and have little to no scoring ability.

If you think that any of the dogshit you listed can come in to score Kate then you are an idiot.
You're just a trolling twat - you said we don't have more than one attacking option - clearly that was bollocks as I showed you ... just like most of your posts.

Now you move the goalposts to say none of the players Son, Gil, Bergwijn, Moura, Clarke, Kane, Dele plus White and Scarlett are good enough ... in fact you call them "dogshit" well my obviously non-Spurs friend, that's you outed.

You're no Spurs fan you're just a cunt - now fuck off to whatever team's website you really support - call half the players dogshite to our faces and any true Spurs fan would put you down like the West Ham went down last night ... are you maybe West Ham? because you sure as DOGSHIT aren't Spurs.

Son is dogshit? - no Igula is a cunt.
 
Quite a discussion people are having in here. Few points:

Regardless of how Kane is performing or whether Kane is scoring or not, we're winning and progressively looking better as a team. Nothing else really matters. Whether he stays or doesn't stay, if we're winning and scoring goals as a team, it's all good.

I posted our record without Kane not to bash Kane. I pointed it out to show that our actual results/record without him were marginally different. My takeaway from this is that the striker position, generally speaking, is overrated. todd1882 todd1882 has pointed this out many times. Games are always won in the midfield so it's no shock that went our top goal scorer went down, we still got results. Same reason why City look great without Aguero, Inter today without Lukaku etc.

We need to move away from Harry Kane ball. If he does stay and we do decide to keep him, he can't be our focal point. Rather, we need to be a high intensity, dynamic, unpredictable team with goals and shots coming from ALL players. Trying to just create space for Kane, having him roam around the box and looking for him rather than the open man isn't a effective strategy. It might get Kane goals, but it'll never yield us any trophies. We can never to back to playing where Kane is taking 140-150+ shots a season. Never.

The good thing is, Conte has realized this and we're already moving away from Harry Kane ball and the results are already showing. Since Conte's joined, we've had the following players score: Son x3, Moura x2, Sanchez, PEH, Regi, Kane, and Berg.

Even if Kane does turn back the clock and suddenly he's playing like the Kane of 2015-17, I doubt he'll ever be as prolific as he once was from a goal scoring perspective simply because of us not playing Harry Kane ball. People here like to think that Kane scored goals because of his individual brilliance, even when his goal conversion rate in many seasons would tell you that he's bang average or slightly above the mean. They failed to recognize that our tactics were build around Kane for him to get as many shots and goals as possible, even at the expense of our team's success. But going forward, under Conte, I'm certain that we will never go back to playing this style of football and I think everyone can see this.

Good days are ahead.
 
Apologies if this point has already been made, but I usually just skim this thread (regulars will appreciate why ;) !)
Anyway, funnily enough it was a spammer on the train home last night that made this point. He said that because Harry's apparently fallen out with Charlie and his dad over the recent shenanigans, it might still be playing on his mind. He might have a point, as what we know of Harry is that he is very focussed on his personal performances and that he is a family man. He married his childhood sweetheart, as he knows that Kate loved him before he became rich and famous and made Charlie his agent, because he trusted him. Also, it must be disheartening to know that Man C weren't willing to pull out all the stops to sign him (not that I know the ins and outs of any discussions that took place - I'm just speculating).
I'll never feel the same about him, but I'm hoping that he regains his focus and gets back to what he does best - hitting the back of the net!
 
Quite a discussion people are having in here. Few points:

Regardless of how Kane is performing or whether Kane is scoring or not, we're winning and progressively looking better as a team. Nothing else really matters. Whether he stays or doesn't stay, if we're winning and scoring goals as a team, it's all good.

I posted our record without Kane not to bash Kane. I pointed it out to show that our actual results/record without him were marginally different. My takeaway from this is that the striker position, generally speaking, is overrated. todd1882 todd1882 has pointed this out many times. Games are always won in the midfield so it's no shock that went our top goal scorer went down, we still got results. Same reason why City look great without Aguero, Inter today without Lukaku etc.

We need to move away from Harry Kane ball. If he does stay and we do decide to keep him, he can't be our focal point. Rather, we need to be a high intensity, dynamic, unpredictable team with goals and shots coming from ALL players. Trying to just create space for Kane, having him roam around the box and looking for him rather than the open man isn't a effective strategy. It might get Kane goals, but it'll never yield us any trophies. We can never to back to playing where Kane is taking 140-150+ shots a season. Never.

The good thing is, Conte has realized this and we're already moving away from Harry Kane ball and the results are already showing. Since Conte's joined, we've had the following players score: Son x3, Moura x2, Sanchez, PEH, Regi, Kane, and Berg.

Even if Kane does turn back the clock and suddenly he's playing like the Kane of 2015-17, I doubt he'll ever be as prolific as he once was from a goal scoring perspective simply because of us not playing Harry Kane ball. People here like to think that Kane scored goals because of his individual brilliance, even when his goal conversion rate in many seasons would tell you that he's bang average or slightly above the mean. They failed to recognize that our tactics were build around Kane for him to get as many shots and goals as possible, even at the expense of our team's success. But going forward, under Conte, I'm certain that we will never go back to playing this style of football and I think everyone can see this.

Good days are ahead.

Nice to see a post that discusses the merits of football played as a team, not this never ending urge to dissect each player into good or bad.

Kane has his records because of the teams that played around him - both Spurs and England have set up to make Kane the goal scoring legend he is, credit to him for fulfilling that role but he didn't do it alone. Those days are probably gone, certainly at club level all successful teams win or lose with their midfield, be that quality DM's or high scoring AM's it's almost impossible to even compete without a very strong midfield, however good your striker may be without midfield support they're just decoration.

Pep, Klopp and obviously Conte get that ... as you say good days are ahead.
 
Well he sure wasn't committed some weeks ago when we had Espirito Santo in charge, but who can really blame him? He only wanted to leave in the first place because of a lack of ambition on our part. And we then went and appointed a sacked Wolves manager which completely justified his words.

But he did not know that before his shenanigans so hmmmm.... but no.

More important us the now and Conte has shown we are a club who still harbour ambition.
 
You'd be forgiven for wondering if no manager is allowed to bench/hook him.

Other than that, I wonder if part of the reason we hired Conte was to improve Kane's form because we've decided we want to sell him.
Conte was hired because we were shit, the crowd were turning on Levy, Nuno and players, there's really not much more to it than that.
 
You're just a trolling twat - you said we don't have more than one attacking option - clearly that was bollocks as I showed you ... just like most of your posts.

Now you move the goalposts to say none of the players Son, Gil, Bergwijn, Moura, Clarke, Kane, Dele plus White and Scarlett are good enough ... in fact you call them "dogshit" well my obviously non-Spurs friend, that's you outed.

You're no Spurs fan you're just a cunt - now fuck off to whatever team's website you really support - call half the players dogshite to our faces and any true Spurs fan would put you down like the West Ham went down last night ... are you maybe West Ham? because you sure as DOGSHIT aren't Spurs.

Son is dogshit? - no Igula is a cunt.

I said we didn't have forwards.

I know reading is hard for you and instead of reading you go with whatever made up argument you want.

LOL and more stupid tough guy shit about "real" Spurs fans putting me down???? Do you think moronic comments like that make you look tough?
 
Apologies if this point has already been made, but I usually just skim this thread (regulars will appreciate why ;) !)
Anyway, funnily enough it was a spammer on the train home last night that made this point. He said that because Harry's apparently fallen out with Charlie and his dad over the recent shenanigans, it might still be playing on his mind. He might have a point, as what we know of Harry is that he is very focussed on his personal performances and that he is a family man. He married his childhood sweetheart, as he knows that Kate loved him before he became rich and famous and made Charlie his agent, because he trusted him. Also, it must be disheartening to know that Man C weren't willing to pull out all the stops to sign him (not that I know the ins and outs of any discussions that took place - I'm just speculating).
I'll never feel the same about him, but I'm hoping that he regains his focus and gets back to what he does best - hitting the back of the net!

People like to speculate because that's all they have. The truth is, nobody here will know even a quarter of what goes on behind the scenes, what's gone on to make Harry make the decisions he did a few months back. People read the papers or hear a fat bloke rambling in their local pub and take that as gospel.

While he definitely could have gone about some things differently, he's human like the rest of us and makes mistakes. It's not like he handed in a transfer request at any point, and/or went on strike as some players have to get the move they wanted. But the most important thing now is that he's clearly getting over his failed move and we're slowly starting to see a bit more of the old Harry Kane. Under Conte he will only get better as the season goes on.
 
Even if Kane does turn back the clock and suddenly he's playing like the Kane of 2015-17, I doubt he'll ever be as prolific as he once was from a goal scoring perspective simply because of us not playing Harry Kane ball. People here like to think that Kane scored goals because of his individual brilliance, even when his goal conversion rate in many seasons would tell you that he's bang average or slightly above the mean. They failed to recognize that our tactics were build around Kane for him to get as many shots and goals as possible, even at the expense of our team's success. But going forward, under Conte, I'm certain that we will never go back to playing this style of football and I think everyone can see this.

Well, hang on a minute. I agree with the general thrust of your post, but this paragraph here is what makes me continue to scratch my head.

2014/15: 56 league goals, 21 by Kane (37.5%), 11 by Chadli and 10 by Eriksen.
2015/16: 68 league goals, 25 by Kane (36.8%), 10 by Dele and 6 by Eriksen.
2016/17: 77 league goals, 29 by Kane (37.7%), 18 by Dele, 14 by Son and 8 by Eriksen.
2017/18: 70 league goals, 30 by Kane (42.9%), 12 by Son, 10 by Eriksen and 9 by Dele.
2018/19: 66 league goals, 17 by Kane (25.8%), 12 by Son, 10 by Lucas and 8 by Eriksen.
2019/20: 56 league goals, 18 by Kane (32.1%), 11 by Son and 8 by Dele.
2020/21: 66 league goals, 23 by Kane (34.8%), 17 by Son and 11 by Bale.

In not a single one of those seasons did we have fewer than 10 different goal-scorers.

The difference is that in our best spell, 2016-19, we had 3 other players who were putting up the numbers, and Kane actually got his highest percentages of our goals too. If anything, "Harry Kane ball" was our most successful approach, but I think the biggest difference was again that we had so many other goal threats, which meant that Harry could be even more lethal when able to find space, and of course 2018/19's numbers are lower than usual because he missed 10 league games through injury that season. He also missed another 9 games through injury in 2019/20, and don't forget that in the most recent season he provided 14 assists to pump up everyone else's numbers.

His individual brilliance never declined, only the ability of the team to carry the load alongside him. Against lesser teams this didn't matter, but against better teams this meant he could be more easily neutralized.

We both/all agree and hope that good times are coming, if the rest of the squad can rise to his level, but can we finally just put this idea of Kane's decline to bed? He's just entered his prime, not a retirement home.
 
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If anything, "Harry Kane ball" was our most successful approach, but I think the biggest difference was again that we had so many other goal threats, which meant that Harry could be even more lethal when able to find space,

Our best season during the Poch era was the 16/17 season, when we finished with 86 points and finished 2nd in the league.

Kane only took 110 shots or 16% of our shots that season. Yes, Kane missed 8 games that season and still finished with 24 non penalty goals but a key factor of our success that season was how we were distributing the ball amongst our players and allowing other players to thrive, not just playing Harry Kane ball and forcing others to pass it to Harry like we did last season.

Here's how many shots each player took that season (16/17):
  • Eriksen: 133
  • Kane: 110
  • Dele: 94
  • Son: 80
On the contrary, look at how we distributed the ball and our shots last season (2020/21):
  • Kane: 137
  • Son: 68
  • Bale: 38
  • Lamela: 21
Kane took 31% of our shots last season and others weren't getting their fair share of opportunities largely because we were forcing our players to play Harry Kane ball. It's no coincidence that we finished 7th in the League. If you recall, we looked so stale, predictable and lethargic, with next to no gameplan other than try to lob it to Kane and hope he figured something out.

We have almost the same team from last season and under Nuno. But look at what Conte has achieved already by changing the tactics, turning us away from Harry Kane ball and playing a more dynamic style of football. We look like a whole different team.

Who would have thought that allowing players to play freely without always looking for Kane and instead, looking for the open man, would result in a more dynamic/unpredictable team? Results are already showing as we've had Son, Lucas, Berg, Regi, PEH, Kane, and Sanchez all scoring.

As I mentioned before, good times are coming with or without Kane.
 
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Well, hang on a minute. I agree with the general thrust of your post, but this paragraph here is what makes me continue to scratch my head.

2014/15: 56 league goals, 21 by Kane (37.5%), 11 by Chadli and 10 by Eriksen.
2015/16: 68 league goals, 25 by Kane (36.8%), 10 by Dele and 6 by Eriksen.
2016/17: 77 league goals, 29 by Kane (37.7%), 18 by Dele, 14 by Son and 8 by Eriksen.
2017/18: 70 league goals, 30 by Kane (42.9%), 12 by Son, 10 by Eriksen and 9 by Dele.
2018/19: 66 league goals, 17 by Kane (25.8%), 12 by Son, 10 by Lucas and 8 by Eriksen.
2019/20: 56 league goals, 18 by Kane (32.1%), 11 by Son and 8 by Dele.
2020/21: 66 league goals, 23 by Kane (34.8%), 17 by Son and 11 by Bale.

In not a single one of those seasons did we have fewer than 10 different goal-scorers.

The difference is that in our best spell, 2016-19, we had 3 other players who were putting up the numbers, and Kane actually got his highest percentages of our goals too. If anything, "Harry Kane ball" was our most successful approach, but I think the biggest difference was again that we had so many other goal threats, which meant that Harry could be even more lethal when able to find space, and of course 2018/19's numbers are lower than usual because he missed 10 league games through injury that season. He also missed another 9 games through injury in 2019/20, and don't forget that in the most recent season he provided 14 assists to pump up everyone else's numbers.

His individual brilliance never declined, only the ability of the team to carry the load alongside him. Against lesser teams this didn't matter, but against better teams this meant he could be more easily neutralized.

We both/all agree and hope that good times are coming, if the rest of the squad can rise to his level, but can we finally just put this idea of Kane's decline to bed? He's just entered his prime, not a retirement home.
During the peak Poch seasons that you mentioned above, we lost 4 times in 23 games without Kane starting. We were winning in spite of Kane, not because of Kane. As I mentioned before, you could argue that we played better without Kane starting but I guess we'll never know.

From 15/16 to 18/19 Seasons w/o Kane Starting

9/24/2016 / Middlesbrough / W
10/2/2016 / Man City / W
10/15/2016 / West Brom / D
10/22/2016 / Bournemouth / D
10/29/2016 / Leicester / D
3/19/2017 / Southampton / W
4/1/2017 / Burnley / W
4/5/2017 / Swansea / W
4/8/2017 / Watford / W
10/28/2017 / Man Utd / L
1/2/2018 / Swansea / W
4/1/2018 / Chelsea / W
12/8/2018 / Leicester / W
1/20/2019 / Fulham / W
1/30/2019 / Watford / W
2/2/2019 / Newcastle / W
2/19/2019 / Leicester / W
4/13/2019 / Huddersfield / W
4/20/2019 / Man City / L
4/23/2019 / Brighton / W
4/27/2019 / West Ham / L
5/4/2019 / Bournemouth / L
5/12/2019 / Everton / D

Wins: 15
Draw: 4
Losses: 4
Average Points Per Game: 2.13
 
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