Manchester United Want Tottenham’s Kane. Again.
By Ryan Wrenn
All it took was one little hat-trick for Manchester United to once again begin lurking around North London, waiting to ‘accidentally’ run into Harry Kane as he leaves training. Can Tottenham be tempted to part with their stuttering talisman though?
Over the summer, this question was easy to answer: an emphatic, unequivocal ‘no’. Kane was just coming off a 30 goal season and was a huge chunk of the reason Tottenham performed as well as it did. Daniel Levy would hear offers for just about any other player but Kane.
Today, the answer shouldn’t be much different. Despite his apparent struggles this season, there’s no real reason to think Kane has lost his spark other than the lack of goals. As we covered here earlier in the week, his form and effort is all there even if the end product isn’t.
Or wasn’t, at least, until his hat-trick against Bournemouth Sunday. That’s been widely cited as a sign that the ‘old’ Kane was back and likely for good, though few thought to look closely enough to see that this was a performance that Kane had been building toward all season. Time will tell if it’s something he can sustain, but he was his typically excellent self on the day, just without the concrete proof on the scoreline.
All of which helps to make United’s bid understandable. Promising is a much more important quality than current form to a team like Louis Van Gaal’s United that is trying to rebuild. Perhaps they also feel that the lack of goals might make their reported offer of as much as £50 million more tempting now to Daniel Levy and company.
It won’t – and it shouldn’t – but let’s hypothesize. What does Tottenham do without Harry Kane?
The uproar this past summer about the lack of striker depth at Tottenham was at once overblown and very real. The club has at least two players on the current roster who could slot into the striker role, though that’s hardly sufficient for a club that aspires to Champions League play.
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The best candidate to take Kane’s role should he leave is Heung-Min Son. The Korean international has spent most of his career playing on the wing or behind a center forward, but his two-goal performance in the Europa League clash against Qarabag in September shows that he’s at least capable of leading the line when asked.
What about the transfer market? Is there a striker out there that might be available in January or next summer that could supplement Kane in this Tottenham team?
The short answer is likely ‘no’. Strikers come at a premium and even with a hypothetical £50 million in the bank, Levy’s desire to break even as much as possible leading up to the new stadium likely means that that money would not immediately be re-invested. That leaves ideal fits like Borussia Dortmund’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Napoli’s Gonzalo Higuaín off the table.
Which means Tottenham gambles with a younger or relatively undervalued player. It’s doubtful that many inside or outside of the club are especially anxious to put the weight placed on Kane’s shoulders on, say, Charlie Austin’s.
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The issue is that Kane – or this striker position in general – isn’t just some interchangeable piece of this Tottenham side. He himself – and whoever would replace him in this scenario – plays a vital role in how the pressing game and attack operate. It’s more than simply goals. If it weren’t, then Nacer Chadli would be one of the better players on the team. Rather, it’s a system that, played correctly, should generate chances on goal by its very nature, regardless if the striker is a nature goalscorer or poacher. Having someone as bought into Mauricio Pochettino’s system as Kane has proven to be is much more valuable than a mildly prolific striker.
All of which is to say that there is no chance Levy or anyone within the club gives more than a moment’s thought to selling Kane, this January or anytime soon. Even when he doesn’t score he plays too valuable a role to consider replacing him at this point.