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'Kane clever enough to see Spurs are a long way off' | Brian Kerr

"When you are scoring 20 plus goals every season, that shows what I can do," Harry Kane said after b...
Stephen Doyle
Stephen Doyle

3:47 PM - 20 Jul 2020



'Kane clever enough to see Spu...

Sport

'Kane clever enough to see Spurs are a long way off' | Brian Kerr

Stephen Doyle
Stephen Doyle

3:47 PM - 20 Jul 2020



"When you are scoring 20 plus goals every season, that shows what I can do," Harry Kane said after bagging a double for Tottenham on Sunday.

Kane was responding to some recent criticism over his form but perhaps the most important question for the England captain is not what he can achieve, but what can his club achieve.

He admitted in an Instagram Live interview last March that he would not hang around forever if the club was not competing for trophies.

"I’m an ambitious player, I want to improve, get better and become one of the top, top players," said Kane.

"It all depends on what happens as a team and how we progress as a team. So it’s not a definite I’m going to stay there forever, but it’s not a no either."

The striker has made 286 appearances for the Premier League club, scoring 187 goals and has now scored 20 plus goals in six consecutive seasons.

However, the trophy cabinet at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium has seen no new tin since 2008 when they won the League Cup.

That was a few years before the striker burst onto the scene and in seven full seasons with the club he has been on the losing side in two finals while their best challenge for the league title faded badly toward the end of the 2015-16 season.

"He's been ferociously loyal to Spurs," OTB Sports analyst Brian Kerr said after the 3-0 league win against Leicester City on Sunday.

"That they had such a good season last year, they finished fourth in the league and they got to the Champions League final, but it was covering up a lot of serious deficiencies. I think they lost twenty games last year in all competitions."

It has been a season of unrest at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium with Jose Mourinho hired as manager following the sacking of Mauricio Pochettino just three months into the new term.

Kerr feels that Tottenham have shown a lack of ability to compete and feels that this will play on Kane's mind as he considers his future.

"This season has been a bit of a disaster for Spurs," added Kerr. They were ineffective in the cup competitions, didn't do great in the Champions League, went out tamely to Leipzig in the last-sixteen.

"They were knocked out at home by Norwich in the FA Cup which they would have been hoping to have a run in, so it's not been a good season for them.

"You would think that Harry Kane has got to be thinking about his future and saying, 'Am I happy to be the English centre-forward who scores loads of goals for my country and my club but never seem to be [regularly] in contention for trophies?'

"Yes, they were in the Champions League final last year but that was a strange one. They were fortunate to beat Manchester City and they were fortunate to beat Ajax in that extraordinary game.

"Would it happen again? It's unlikely. It'll be somebody else's turn to do something extraordinary in the Champions League."

The 26-year-old's current deal with the north-Londoners is worth a reported €220k per week and it runs until the summer of 2024 but he may be waiting to see if the club will invest in other top class players.

However, Pochettino wasn't backed in the transfer market last summer and whether Mourinho will be remains to be seen while there are doubts over the Portuguese and whether he still has the ability to build serial trophy winning teams.

"I would think that they are a long way short of challenging in the Premier League and I'm sure Harry Kane is clever enough to identify that, irrespective of who the manager is, whether it is Mourinho or anybody else," said Kerr.

"I think he would look at it and say, 'We're a long way short and I don't think the club are going to invest in the sort of players that are going to make a sudden change to where we're at'.

"It's not hard to see a situation, where if Spurs had an extraordinary offer for Harry Kane, that they would accept it and where he would accept moving on from a club he obviously loves dearly and where he is so admired by all the supporters, players and staff.

"It isn't difficult to see a situation where Harry Kane could move on whether Spurs have finished sixth or seventh in the league and haven't really featured this season at all and he is getting to, his next birthday he'll be 27, but let's wait and see."



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Brian Kerr Champions League Harry Kane Jose Mourinho Premier League Spurs Tottenham Tottenham Hotspur

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