Speaking recently on The View from The Lane podcast, James Maw and Charlie Eccleshare discussed Tottenham Hotspur centre-forward, Harry Kane, and the circumstances in which the 27-year-old won Spurs’ penalty against Brighton & Hove Albion.
In the fixture itself, a penalty from Kane and a header by Gareth Bale were just about enough for Spurs to defeat Brighton 2-1, however, the incident which resulted in Kane’s penalty has been the cause of much discussion.
The England captain appeared to knowingly back into Adam Lallana on the edge of the Brighton penalty area, who was jumping in an attempt to head the ball to safety, which resulted in Lallana falling over the top of Kane, and subsequently, after a VAR check, the referee Graham Scott awarding Spurs a penalty.
The incident was one topic of conversation on a recent episode of The View from The Lane podcast, in which Maw and Eccleshare criticised Kane for what they felt was dangerous play by the 27-year-old.
Maw said: “You shouldn’t be able to get away with things like that, you shouldn’t be doing things like that. The way that people can get knocked off balance when they’re in the air… you are really risking a player’s possibility of getting injured in that kind of situation. I think that is something he needs to curb, and quickly.”
While Eccleshare added: “It is actually dangerous. In rugby, if you do this kind of thing – if you impede someone when they’re up in the air – it’s an automatic red card, and the reason is because the consequences are potentially quite severe.”
Do you believe that Lallana's apparent foul on Kane should have been given?
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TIF Thoughts on Eccleshare and Maw’s comments regarding Harry Kane…
From their comments, it is obvious that the journalists are of the belief that Kane knew what he was doing in the incident with Lallana by backing into the jumping player, and that by doing this he is risking the safety of an opposition player.
And, we have to say, knocking a player off balance while they are in the air does indeed seem to be a very dangerous act, and, in our opinion, the Kane and Lallana incident should have seen Kane penalised, rather than the other way round.