The Harry Kane tug of war

Spurs? Man Utd? Where should he be next season?

Stats are from FBRef unless stated otherwise.

If I supported Tottenham, Harry Kane would be just about the only thing I enjoyed about this team.

In the years since reaching the Champions League final in 2019, just about everything good has been stripped away from Spurs. Even Son Heung-min is short of his usual standards. But Kane just keeps scoring goals, come rain or shine. Mauricio Pochettino once bristled at Pep Guardiola’s “Harry Kane team” description, but Ryan Mason couldn’t complain if the same thing was said today.

And yet, Spurs fans believe he should’ve left by now.

2021 was the closest it ever came to happening. Pep Guardiola certainly wanted him, even if others at Manchester City were apparently less sure. City reportedly bid £75 million upfront with an additional £25m in add-ons. Spurs chairman Daniel Levy was clear that he didn’t want to sell at any price and it was a non-starter, despite Kane’s clear desire to leave.

Lautaro Martínez was widely reported as a target for Tottenham, presumably to replace Kane (they insisted otherwise, but come on). He’d probably cost most, if not all, of the £75m upfront fee for Kane, so we’re talking about a straight swap here. And this is the downside case. Spurs qualified for the Champions League last season by two points. Even if Martínez did well, I still think the likely scenario would be Spurs being at least two points worse off in the immediate aftermath of losing Kane, so that’s another year without Champions League football.

In reality, Tottenham made it as far as the Round of 16 in Europe’s biggest competition. We don’t yet know how much money this generated, but Manchester United reached that same stage last season and made about £70m (give or take whatever the exchange rate is to the Euro on a given day). Obviously, we don’t know how well Spurs would’ve done in the Europa League instead. But looking at the figures made by English clubs in that tournament last season (the revenues are different for each country), £20m seems a fair barometer. So selling and replacing Kane may well have cost Spurs £50m in cash in the immediate term. This is all guesswork, but the case for selling Kane was short-term pain for long-term gain, and finishing fifth last year would’ve hit the bank balance. I was pretty strongly in favour of selling Kane at the time, but I think I was wrong upon reflection. The fee offered by Man City wouldn’t offset the value of immediate Champions League football.

Granted, Spurs haven’t done a lot with that £50m from the Champions League. None of their signings from last summer are unqualified successes, with some looking like absolute stinkers. Fabio Paratici has done a very poor job and there’s no real reason to think he would’ve replaced Kane well. Whether they sell their star striker or not, Tottenham have to improve their recruitment.

The core argument for selling Kane this time is as follows: Spurs have one of the oldest teams in the Premier League. Rebuilding the side is going to take time, at which point Kane will be past his prime anyway, and he may already be declining. Taking the money now and getting his wages off the books will make it a lot easier to rebuild the team.

Let’s break that down. Spurs have the third oldest average age in the Premier League, weighted by minutes played, at 28.4. Of the outfielders to play at least 700 league minutes this season, only four could be classed as “young”: Oliver Skipp (22), Ryan Sessegnon (22), Dejan Kulusevski (23) and Pedro Porro (23). It’s not an impressive group, and Kulusevski’s loan may not be made permanent. From there, they have seven “prime-age” players: Emerson Royal (24), Cristian Romero (25), Rodrigo Bentancur (25), Richarlison (25), Yves Bissouma (26), Pierre-Emile Højbjerg (27) and Clément Lenglet (27). Two of these players (Porro and Lenglet) are on loan, which means the other five should really be playing a lot of football for the next few years, like it or not. Then we have the five older players: Eric Dier (29), Kane (29), Ben Davies (30), Son (30) and Ivan Perišić (34). Kane is probably the only one with a strong argument to still start in two or three years’ time.

So there’s definitely work to do in order to build a side that can regularly finish in the top four again. I think it would take at least two years, at which point Kane would be 31. Now, the question of Kane’s decline has haunted analytics for a while. His headline stats are still pretty strong, with 0.45 non-penalty xG and 0.18 xG assisted per 90 well within his usual range. Spurs fan and friend of the newsletter Joel Wertheimer, though, argues these numbers are a little inflated. Tottenham hired Gianni Vio as a set piece coach last summer and he’s done strong work, with Kane a clear beneficiary. Wertheimer points out that when you look at only open play numbers, his decline is clearer, with his xG per 90 down to its lowest level since his breakout season.

The counter-argument to this is obviously that Spurs got worse, though that’s a bit muddy. They were creating fewer expected goals per game two years ago (1.40) than this season (1.48). He’s receiving an almost identical number of progressive passes per 90 (5.43) this year as that one (5.41). Does that mean he’s become slightly worse at turning what he gets into good chances? Or does it mean he’s got the same burst as ever to get into positions to receive the ball? It’s hard to parse what’s actually happening in the data. To the eye, he does look a little less mobile than before, which usually requires a tactical fix of getting other fast players around him. England have done this better than Tottenham, largely because England just have a lot of dynamic young wingers and Spurs don’t, at least not if Son is declining. I’m confident he’s still an excellent player, even if he might not be quite as good as he once was.

FBRef claims Kane is Tottenham’s highest earner at £200k per week. I can’t speak for the accuracy of those numbers, but I’d be pretty confident of him being their highest earner. Spurs have always been disciplined in terms of wages, spending less than the other so-called “top six” clubs. The wage bill has gradually grown over the past decade, probably as a consequence of growing revenues through the new stadium and boosting commercial visibility. But unless they make Champions League football a regular event, my hunch is these are probably “catch-up” years and they’re bound to stay behind some of the other clubs. And looking at the graph below, the catch-up is as much about Arsenal stalling as anything else. With the Gunners bringing Champions League football back to the Emirates, they could pull away from Tottenham in terms of wages again.

Source: Swiss Ramble

Kane knows this. His contract runs out in a year and would reportedly be open to leaving for free in 2024. Spurs would have to break their wage structure to match what he could get on the open market. If that’s how it is, the choices are selling him now or letting him walk in 12 months. The only reason to keep him for another season in that scenario is if you have a real chance at a meaningful trophy. So I’ll ask you, dear reader: do you think Tottenham are winning a trophy next season?

The rumour mill has gone wild. Just about everyone is reporting that Manchester United want Kane this summer. United need a striker. “Not a wide player or number ten who can also play upfront a bit”, I wrote recently. “A genuine, undisputed, honest-to-god number nine. That’s the most important thing this summer.” Kane is exactly that. But there are also good reasons not to sign him, so let’s explore both sides of this.

If Kane needs runners close to him, he’ll definitely get that at Old Trafford. I can easily picture it now. Kane comes short to receive the ball to feet from Christian Eriksen, then launches a counter attack by springing the ball to Marcus Rashford or Antony. Kane and Rashford could easily become the new Kane and Son. Kane would be the fixed point around which the other attackers could move. If you were to build in a lab the kind of striker to elevate this team right now, you would build him.

That’s obviously what Erik ten Hag is thinking. With Kane playing every week, the whole attack gains structure. It means Rashford always plays from the left when fit, and more consistent patterns can develop. Kane offers a direct route, but he’s also one of the tidiest strikers out there, giving all the good link-up play you could ask for. He’d make them better in patient possession, better at going long, and better at fast counter attacks.

It’d feel like a Sir Alex Ferguson signing. He famously pushed hard to bring Alan Shearer to Old Trafford, pushing especially hard in 1996, and would’ve been willing to pay what was then a world record fee to do it. Shearer, though, put heart over head and decided to fulfil his childhood dream of playing for Newcastle. For Shearer, playing in the area he called home, for the club he grew up supporting, meant more than the red shirt of Manchester United.

Shearer already had one thing Kane lacks: a Premier League winner’s medal. He was very fortunate that he could win the league title first, then make the romantic move to his boyhood club. Kane is not so fortunate. He’s already scored more goals for Tottenham than Shearer ever did for Newcastle, with the same number of trophies to show for it. But Shearer will forever be remembered as a local hero on Tyneside, whereas Kane might become the enemy in North London if he left Spurs. Them’s the breaks.

Shearer was 26 years old when he chose to go to Newcastle over Man Utd. Kane will turn 30 before the first game of next season. People will point to players like Karim Benzema, Robert Lewandowski and Zlatan Ibrahimović staying at the top of their game well into their 30s. But it doesn’t always work out like that. Wayne Rooney, the man whose England scoring record Kane broke, was a busted flush by age 30. Gonzalo Higuaín, a man once considered Benzema’s equal at Real Madrid and who Juventus paid £76 million for, didn’t fare much better after his 30th birthday. You just don’t know in advance which way it’ll go.

Robin van Persie is the obvious comparison. I actually think that, had Ferguson stayed on a few more years, he’d have done everything to buy Kane in 2015 or so as Van Persie’s long-term replacement. But that gets at the problem: Van Persie needed replacing just a few years after he was bought at age 29. He had an excellent first season at Old Trafford, before injuries from earlier in his career came back to haunt him the next year, and his form dipped significantly the year after. Was one good season worth the money United paid to get him?

Most fans would say “yes, because he won them the league”. We’ll never know for sure who would’ve won the 2012/13 title if Van Persie stays at Arsenal or goes to Man City. But, for the sake of argument, let’s just say he was the difference, and United would be level with Liverpool on 19 league titles without him. I think it’s justifiable to sign him in that situation and that situation only. If Man Utd had missed out on the league title in 12/13, the Van Persie signing would’ve been a failure.

Kane would be the perfect “final piece” signing for a team just short of winning the title, but Man Utd aren’t there yet. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the target for Man Utd should be winning the title in 2025/26, the final year of Ten Hag’s contract if the extra year clause is triggered. Every single decision should be judged on whether or not it brings the club closer to that goal. It should be running through the entire organisation, from chief executive Richard Arnold down to the manager, the players and the staff.

Kane will be 32 during that season. If United sign him right now, they’re making an expensive bet that he’ll still be a top-quality striker at that age. I think there’s a reasonable chance of that working out. He’s still the second-best striker in the Premier League, and the decline would have to set in pretty clearly for him to be a problem by then. But there is a significant risk here. It’s a risk for a lot of money, and it’s not one I’d feel great about taking.

Kane isn’t quite ideal for either Spurs or Man Utd. I don’t know who he’s ideal for, which sounds like a much bigger criticism than it is. If the 2012 version of United existed today, I’d have no problem saying Kane was the right signing. As it is, I just don’t know where he fits.