IF the sad events of this week have ensured that the title of football’s greatest is done and dusted for good, we can still enjoy the waxing and waning of contemporary players as they shift from promising to elite and then down the other side.
For better or worse, the Ronaldo and Messi era has been so long it has eclipsed others who emerged in the same era. Even global pandemics work in their favour, with the 2020 Ballon d’Or cancelled for pretty much no reason whatsoever, denying Robert Lewandowski an almost-certain title. Can the Bayern player maintain that form for another year? Or will someone else emerge as the game’s interregnum-leader, and could it be Harry Kane?
Making that claim about Kane at the start of 2020 would have been outlandish to say the least. A severe hamstring injury looked to have ruled the Tottenham striker out for the rest of the Premier League season and the Euros too, but things can change, and things did change and here we are in November and Kane leads not just the Premier League in assists but all of the big five leagues and by a margin of at least four over every other player.
Much has been written about Kane’s shift from a nine to a 10 to a nine a half to whatever he became in last weekend’s win against Manchester City, an omnipotent being who had the entire match under control. It could be a brief period of form, that is still a thing, or Kane could be making that next step up in his journey to superstardom, a vast new ceiling unlocked by the methods of Jose Mourinho. If so, how far can Kane progress and how many records can he break? Let’s have a look.
Goals
Kane scored fewer than 20 goals in the last two Premier League seasons (17 in 2018-19 and 18 in 2019-20) yet still has 150 in 219 appearances, a ratio of 0.68 per game. The gleaming target in the distance is Alan Shearer’s total of 260, the last of which went in against Sunderland in April 2006, when Kane was nearing the end of Year Eight at school. Kane needs 111 goals to overtake Shearer, which at 0.68 goals per game means another 163 matches, or four and a bit seasons.
Both Shearer and Kane had the pleasantness to be born in high summer, which makes comparing their careers by age nice and easy. Kane will be 28 next July and at that point in Shearer’s career (at the conclusion of 1997-98) he had just endured what would be his worst ever season, with just two goals in 17 games. That took him to 139 goals, so fewer than Kane has with more than half a season left to catch up, but in only 186 games.
No matter, it’s quantity we’re concerned with here. Shearer’s latter years were blighted with injury and after 1997-98 he only broke the 20-goals-in-a-season barrier twice more, in 1999-2000 and 2003-04. Similarly Kane, with his history, cannot guarantee the remainder of his career will be injury-free but he needs only a goal every other game for six more seasons and the sunny 261-goal uplands will be his.
Traditionalists right now are smashing rattles against iron turnstiles, shouting “actually you’ll find Jimmy Greaves is the English top-flight’s top scorer, with 357.” They’re right and adding another 100 or so goals to Kane’s target complicates things considerably. He’d need another eight seasons if he can maintain his goals per game rate of 0.68 (and if he starts to play deeper that may well be unlikely).
Let’s call it 10 seasons instead, then. 10 more seasons of Harry Kane at the top level and he can overtake Jimmy Greaves. In the words of Rocco Lampone in the Godfather, “difficult, but not impossible.”
VERDICT: Will overtake Shearer but not Greaves
Cristiano Ronaldo & Marc Overmars never assisted more than 8 goals in a PL season. Harry Kane has nine in nine games this season.
— Duncan Alexander (@oilysailor) November 21, 2020
Assists
In career terms Kane has embarked his creative period too late to challenge the likes of Ryan Giggs, Wayne Rooney and Cesc Fabregas in overall terms but Thierry Henry’s long-challenged 2002-03 record of 20 assists, matched last season of course by Kevin De Bruyne, is well within reach. Indeed, with nine assists in nine games this season, Kane would almost look nailed on were it not for the capricious nature of this challenge. Many people from Fabregas to Mesut Ozil have looked on course to overtake Henry, only to fade once the summit was in sight. Consistent assisting is a much harder output to maintain than scoring (no-one, not even scientists, know why) so it’s inevitable Kane will slow down. Isn’t it?
VERDICT: Kane to fall short on 19 assists
Deep Lying
Harry Kane has already played in goal for Spurs, against Asteras Tripolis in 2014, but there has been considerably more excitement about his recent deep lying stance. Think of it as the Paul Warhurst pathway. Warhurst started as a centre-half, went up front for Sheffield Wednesday as an emergency striker and scored plenty of goals before ending his career as a central midfielder. Is Kane truly shifting further towards his own goal or has he just tracked back a bit in some big games and people have noticed?
Well, the numbers say that Kane is making 5.9 passes per 90 in his own half this season, which is more than any previous campaign, with the next highest being 5.1 in 2014-15 when, to paraphrase Harry Redknapp, he could run around a bit better. The lowest figure? 2.7 in 2017-18 when he was a single-minded striker with his eye on the World Cup. The theory works, but will it endure?
VERDICT: Kane is a false 10, not a false six
