Tottenham’s Harry Kane Will (Still) Be Just Fine
By Ryan Wrenn
Commentators the world ’round likely shared a smug grin as Harry Kane managed to score an own goal in Tottenham’s visit to Swansea on Sunday. It was his second goal in as many games, they said. He was bound to go on a run now.
That irony is in part the result of a run of eight games that has seen Kane produce a single goal, the third in Tottenham’s 4-1 rout of Manchester City a week ago Saturday. That goal, an impressive volley off of free-kick that hit the post, was Kane’s first for Tottenham since his 30 goal haul in all competitions from last term. It was never going to be easy to recreate those kinds of totals, but it’s safe to say few fans and pundits alike thought it would be this bad.
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‘Bad’, of course, is a matter of perspective. There are obvious declines in form. Chelsea right-back Branislav Ivanović has experienced a very public disintegration so far this season as his age seems finally to have caught up with him. That’s been plain to see to anyone who has watched the Serbian get beaten and left behind time and time again by opposition wingers.
Form, however, isn’t Harry Kane’s problem. The end results might not be there, but in most every way we have of measuring his effort, he might actually be improving. All numbers from WhoScored.
| Shots Per 90 | On Target Per 90 | Outside Box | Inside Box | Six-Yard | Conversion Rate | |
| Kane 2014 | 3.9 | 1.2 | 1.6 | 2 | 0.3 | 44% |
| Kane 2015 | 3.7 | 1.2 | 1.2 | 2.4 | 0.1 | 11% |
Both his total shots and his shots on target have more or less remained constant to his efforts last term in the Premier League. The one significant change we see should actually be a positive: he’s taking more shots inside the opposition’s penalty area.
The difference is in how often Kane is converting shots on goal into actual goals. In 2014/15, he managed to score 19 non-penalty goals of his 44 non-penalty shots on goal, a conversion rate of 43%. So far this term, he’s managed to do so once in nine attempts, a rate of 11%.
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The best players in the Premier League don’t reach the levels Kane reached last season. Over four seasons with Manchester City, Sergio Agüero has produced a conversion rate of shots on goal of just below 40%. Since 2009/10 – the farthest back WhoScored’s stats go – Wayne Rooney has managed just above 30%. Those numbers are a testament to how prodigiously talented both Agüero and Rooney are, and therefore should not be the standard we hold Kane to.
It’s worth noting that there is an inarguably better way to measure Kane’s goals and effectiveness. Some number-minded readers might already be familiar with a relatively new statistic in football called Expected Goals. It is a means by which we can guess how often a player should be scoring based on the various qualities of the shots he or she takes: positioning, game situation, what part of the body was used, etc. By that metric, Harry Kane vastly overperformed last season, and the chances of him replicating that feat again are slim. The only reason we don’t attempt to go into much depth here is because it’s been done far better elsewhere.
Ultimately the question over Kane’s effectiveness in this Tottenham side is how good a player we actually expect him to be. At only 22 years old, he’s got some time to find that quality. Until he does, it’s unrealistic to expect – or demand – the same results from what was actually a monumentally lucky season.
Does that mean that Kane won’t be worth starting? Absolutely not. As we’ve seen, he’s still making all the right noises when it comes to his offensive contributions. If they’re not quite reaching the heights of last season, it’s because only an extremely talent few would ever be able to reproduce such numbers year over year. Kane might not be Lionel Messi – or even Sergio Agüero – but he’s still the kind of player that can and likely will split the different between last term’s numbers and what he’s managed so far this season.
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