Harry Kane Convinced He Will Find Form for Tottenham
After a disappointing performance for England on Sunday, Tottenham striker Harry Kane set out to improve on a slow start to the season.
England didn’t earn the opening win in their World Cup Qualifying campaign until the absolute last moment. Despite a second half red card for erstwhile Liverpool centre-back Martin Skrtel, England could not find a way through Slovakia’s defense in regulation. It took a strike from Adam Lallana past what was supposed to be the end of stoppage time to settle the matter.
Kane started the match in Sam Allardyce’s first match as England coach along with Eric Dier, Kyle Walker and Danny Rose. Even with Lallana, Wayne Rooney and Raheem Sterling pulling the strings behind him, Kane could not find a way past Slovakia’s backline. He was subbed off the pitch for Daniel Sturridge late in the game.
It was a performance reminiscent of Kane’s first three matches of the season for Tottenham. Against Everton, Crystal Palace and Liverpool Kane’s looked a shadow of the man who scored 25 goals on his way to a Premier League Golden Boot last term. Indeed, in his last match before the international break Kane recorded precisely zero shots over 90 minutes.
There are some explanations for this. Between last year’s under-21 European Championship and this summer’s Euros in France, Kane has not had a meaningful break from football for over two years. Furthermore, in an effort to give him some kind of time off, Pochettino shortened Kane’s (and several other players’) preseason down to hardly more than a single week.
Pochettino’s insistence on experimenting with a two striker system pairing Kane and newcomer Vincent Janssen hasn’t helped matters either. While Kane might eventually find a way to thrive as the deeper of the two strikers, at the moment it doesn’t appear to be working.
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Pointing to such specific issues likely isn’t the best solution. What’s worked before and what, Kane insists, will work again here is clear: patience.
Kane’s immediate response last season to coming off a 30 goal haul in 2014/15 was to go on a similarly unimpressive dry spell. It took him until late September to score his first goal, and that came off a Christian Eriksen free-kick that hit the woodwork before landing in Kane’s path.
After a hat-trick against Bournemouth a month later, Kane took off and eventually scored those goals that would earn him the Golden Boot. That early season dry spell became a blip.
Now that it’s surfaced again, short-sighted critics are demanding an explanation. To that, Kane has only responded with confidence.
“Unfortunately there was a lot of talk last year and I managed to prove a lot of people wrong, so people will talk this year as well,” the 23-year-old told SkySports following the England match.
“It’s part of football. It’s what they’re doing. I am confident in my ability. I know that if I continue doing what I am doing the goals will come, that is all I can do.”
Sure enough, throughout Kane’s struggles early last season his was putting up underlying numbers that suggested he should be scoring more goals than he was. Eventually those numbers came to the surface, even if it did take longer than people hoped.
“I think I didn’t score in my first seven or eight games and then to go on and win the Golden Boot proves that it was just a matter of time.
“People might talk now or if I don’t score in the next five or six games, it doesn’t bother me. I am a confident player.
“I know if I keep doing what I am doing I will score goals and that is what I am going to do.”
Tottenham’s experience with Kane last season gives a lot of weight to this confidence, even if his numbers haven’t exactly done the same. But for a six shot tally against Palace, Kane’s not looked all that close to the player he was last season.
Pochettino will need to get him into a more comfortable position — perhaps alone atop the formation? — if he wants Kane to recreate his comeback from last season. Saturday’s match against Stoke City could therefore be the turning point for both Kane and Tottenham after thus-far-lackluster seasons for both.