For the amount of money that Tottenham Hotspur has spent on its youth academy, you could forgive the club’s chairman Daniel Levy for feeling a little short-changed. It was a different story, however, during Spurs’ astonishing New Year’s Day take-down of Chelsea, with Mauricio Pochettino naming five players in his starting XI who have all worked their way the club’s youth ranks (if not exactly starting their careers at Tottenham).
By now, you’ll know that it was 21-year-old Harry Kane who was once again the most lethal weapon in Spurs’ armoury, assisting two goals and scoring two of his own, but you may not have fully considered just how unimaginable this would’ve seemed not so long ago, or why Kane finding form is so important for a club, which is apparently going through a ‘transition season’ for what surely must be the third year running.
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The narrative at Tottenham for the past year or so has been how to fill the Gareth Bale-shaped void in the club. Levy’s relentless pursuit for new talent cost the club more than £100 million and at least one man his job. But perhaps the gravest consequence was that it robbed Tottenham of its identity: seven relatively obscure players were drafted in from foreign leagues, as fan favourites like Jermain Defoe, Sandro and Benoît Assou-Ekotto were phased out.
Meanwhile, Harry Kane – on the back of unsuccessful loan spells at Norwich and Leicester – was Instagramming pictures of his dinner at Nando’s and his many holidays abroad.
Failing to make much of an impact when Harry Redknapp first started fielding Spurs’ new crop of weedy-looking youngsters on dreary Europe League weeknights, no one would’ve guessed that Kane would emerge as the pick of the bunch. But where as once-lauded youngsters like Tom Carroll, Stephen Caulker and to a certain extent, Andros Townsend have so far failed to deliver on what was promised from them, Kane has not only exceeded expectations, but smashed them into smithereens.
With André Villas-Boas driven out of Tottenham little more than a year ago, Kane rewarded interim manager Tim Sherwood’s faith in him, scoring in three consecutive Premier League appearances at the tail end of last season.
New boss Pochettino decided – perhaps naively – not to invest any more money on attacking options and Kane was given another chance to prove himself in the Carling Cup and Europa League this season. He rose to the new challenge remarkably well and made it increasingly difficult for Pochettino to resist giving him a regular start in light of the side’s misfiring strike force.
The tipping point came at Villa Park, with Kane coming off the bench in the second half to help his struggling teammates breakdown a 10-man Aston Villa. When Spurs won a free kick outside the edge of the area in the game’s dying minutes – and Kane had the audacity to hover over the ball, pushing aside Townsend and Erik Lamela – you could already sense him bending the ball into the corner of the net, such was his form at the time. It didn’t exactly happen like that; Kane struck the ball sweetly, but it cannoned off of Nathan Baker’s head and bamboozled goalkeeper Brad Guzan to seal a lucky win for Spurs, and perhaps more importantly, announce Kane’s arrival.
Kane made consecutive starts against Stoke and Hull, suddenly finding himself above both Emmanuel Adebayor and Roberto Soldado in the pecking order. While he didn’t score against Everton, it was his best performance so far; he covered an incredible 13 km of ground (more than any Premier League player that week other than Burnley’s George Boyd) and worked tirelessly to both penetrate and contain Everton, helping his side to achieve another 2-1 win.
To hear Kane’s name holler around White Hart Lane or to watch him stumble gormlessly through a post-match interview, doing his best to reflect on another MOTM performance, is something that no one would have predicted.
But besides the goals, there are perhaps bigger, more poignant reasons why Spurs fans – who may have once mocked Kane – have taken the lanky centre-forward into their hearts so dearly. While the bulk of Spurs’ new arrivals from their summer of love remain unknown quantities both on the pitch and off, Kane is a local lad who grew up supporting the club. He plays like any fan would: getting stuck in, hassling the defence, covering large amounts of ground and celebrating passionately.
Kane’s work rate has been the difference; it has led some to suggest that he’s a natural fit for Pochettino’s high-pressing style and initially, it allowed fans to look past his somewhat comical, gangly physique and technical deficiencies. But against Chelsea, Kane proved to the doubters that he has more in his locker than just a knack for finding himself in the right place at the right time. His second goal was a work of art, dragging the ball back with his left foot, pivoting towards the goal and side-footing the ball past Thibaut Courtois. His first goal wasn’t bad either, cutting in from the left and blazing the ball into the back of the net from 25 yards out.
The charm of Kane is that he could be any 21-year-old lucky enough to be living his own dream. Despite his youth, he’s a throwback to simpler times; he’s been neither blessed with the looks or intelligence of a modern footballer, and his skill – which could still improve greatly over the next few seasons – appears to be learned through hard graft rather than something that was gifted to him.
It’s important that we don’t get carried away; there’s every chance that Kane’s current form might simply be a case of good fortune, like many youngsters who once burnt brightly only to find themselves in the bargain bin by their mid-20s. But at this moment in time, Kane remains an incredibly exciting prospect – for Tottenham, for England and for modern football in general.
Alex Andrews
Filed under: Sport
