On the latest episode of The View from The Lane podcast for The Athletic, Jack Pitt-Brooke, James Maw and Charlie Eccleshare reacted to Spurs’ 1-1 draw with Manchester United on Friday night.
The trio, perhaps unsurprisingly, had a discussion about Harry Kane, as the England captain struggled to make much of an impact in Friday night’s game, earning a 6.5 rating from WhoScored, in what was his first competitive fixture since New Year’s Day.
Pitt-Brooke prompts the discussion on the 26-year-old, saying:
“Another individual we have to talk about is Harry Kane, who according to Dan Kilpatrick on Twitter, had 36 touches, the fewest of any outfield player who played 90. Obviously, Charlie, it was his first game since New Year’s Day, he has had a bad injury. But how did he look up close?”
Eccleshare replied, saying:
“I was watching him closely and he worked hard, he was another one who looked really tired. Even by that last drinks break, he looked pretty exhausted. Again, he hasn’t played since New Year’s Day. He was dropping deeper and deeper trying to help out the defence, leading from the front as much as he could. He couldn’t really influence the game that much from an attacking perspective and along with the touches, he was pretty low down on a lot of those metrics.
“That does happen quite often for a striker, but by my numbers, looking at Opta, he made more clearances than he had shots, which is suboptimal for a striker. But look, it’s his first game back. I don’t think we should be too harsh on him given that, he actually does often score when he comes back. There’s this idea, I think that he starts slowly, which hasn’t always been the case really when he’s come back, but this is a longer break than that. You want to give him time, but clearly it wasn’t a vintage performance from him.”
Maw then provided his thoughts on the striker, saying:
“He looked way off the pace. Not a lot was really coming off for him. You don’t necessarily want to remove a player who’s always going to be a goal threat, which obviously we know he is – he’s scored goals from all over the pitch, really. I think their more sensible option at one-nil up would have been to take him off and put Son up front and get a bit more pace in the team, or put Lo Celso on earlier and got a bit more of control in midfield and just kind of shore things up a little bit that way, rather than just kind of punting hopeful balls up to a player who didn’t really look particularly comfortable chasing them.”
TIF Thoughts…
As these journalists from The Athletic allude to, it was Kane’s first appearance since New Year’s Day, so he was perhaps always likely to be a bit rusty. Hopefully, for the England striker, playing 90 minutes won’t have tired him out too much, and he will be fit to start against West Ham on Tuesday night.
Will Kane score against West Ham on Tuesday?
Yes
No
The England striker scored in the away win at the London Stadium earlier in the season, in what was Spurs’ first game under Jose Mourinho (per BBC), so we’re sure that he will be confident of grabbing his first goal of 2020 in the reverse fixture against the Hammers later this week.