Ken Early: Harry Kane has a chance to vault to the highest possible level of English football heroism WorldCup2022 ENGFRA via IrishTimesSport
Spend long enough listening to JT and you’d almost find yourself willing it to happen.
June 2018, the month when he scored most of those Golden Boot goals, was also the month when he made the biggest mistake of his career. That was the decision, made in conjunction with his agent/brother Charlie, to sign a new six-year contract at Spurs.
Kane ignored that advice. As he has got older he has become more of an all-round scorer-creator and less of a finisher. The change of emphasis can be seen in his numbers. In 72 league games over the two seasons from 2016 to 2018 he got 69 goals and seven assists. In 69 games over the seasons 2020 to 2022, he scored 40 and assisted 23.
The fading legend is like a misfiring old artillery piece that needs a team of strong horses to drag it around: the entire team ends up serving this player at the expense of all the other things they could be doing to win the game. Shearer ended up like this in his last few seasons at Newcastle, still grimly scoring a goal every two matches as the team got worse. Latterly so has Cristiano Ronaldo.
His ability to see the game and break it open with quick accurate passes is especially useful in the context of an England squad full of mobile, intelligent forwards who can get behind defences: Phil Foden, Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford, Raheem Sterling, and now also Jude Bellingham, the 19-year-old prodigy who is playing with a confidence reminiscent of Paul Gascoigne or Wayne Rooney in their first tournaments.
Ireland Latest News, Ireland Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
An older Kane has become more of a scorer-creator and less of a finisherThe player has developed new ways to serve England and help his team-mates while still contributing a lot of goals himself
Read more »
Six claims by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle exposed as completely untruePrince Harry and Meghan Markle's Netflix docuseries has exposed the truth about many false allegations - including some of their own claims
Read more »
Jennifer O’Connell: Helping Harry to see how ‘weird’ the monarchy may be Meghan’s greatest achievementFor a documentary series that is sugary enough in spots to rot the teeth out of your head, it is also surprisingly revealing
Read more »