Speculation is rife that Harry Kane will pack up his hair gel and bid a fond farewell to Tottenham Hotspur at the end of the season. I think it’s inevitable.

Despite having three years left on his contract, rumour has it the England captain has a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ with the club that he can leave this summer, and he said he wants an “honest conversation” with chairman Daniel Levy.

Although this is not news any Spurs fan wants to hear, can you really blame the lad for wanting to move to a club that actually wins things?

The forward has been banging in the goals (220 of them) for Tottenham for years, building a reputation not only as one of the most prolific strikers in England, but across the whole of Europe.

Yet he still hasn’t won anything. Not a sausage. There have been a couple of near misses and the odd close call, but he doesn’t have a single medal to show for his efforts.

Now, at 27, does he really want to spend his prime years at Spurs, potentially ending his career without lifting a trophy of any shape or size?

Of course, I am not saying this will be an easy decision for Harry to make. He comes across as a loyal sort of chap, and I am sure he is tempted to stay where he is, become the club’s all-time record scorer and further enhance his reputation as a Spurs legend. There is also a decent chance he can become the Premier League’s record scorer, even if he stays at Spurs, so there are things to play for.

But, as nice as those records would be, it is trophies and medals that players want to get their hands on. Those are the career landmarks that stand out when the time comes to hang up your boots.

There is still a chance he could win things at Spurs. And maybe a quick and impressive managerial appointment will convince him that is the case. Or maybe Levy has something else up his sleeve that will persuade him to stay.

But I suspect Harry is looking at the likes of Chelsea and Manchester City and realising a move to one of those two at this point would all but guarantee him tangible success over the next four or five years.

There is, of course, one big provision on all this: Spurs don’t have to sell him. As I said earlier, he still has three years left on his contract and this ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ sounds like the sort of thing agents say to force an issue.

Spurs boss Levy is one of the hardest and most shrewd negotiators in the business. I am sure that, for him, any sort of verbal agreement isn’t worth the paper it is written on.

And Levy will know that selling Kane this summer, when football is still financially stricken by COVID-19, means he won’t get top dollar for his prize asset.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out over the next few weeks. But, if I had any money to spare, I certainly wouldn’t put it on Kane being at Spurs at the end of summer.

Liverpool’s fight for fourth

Considering the absolute pickle Liverpool have made of this season, it’s quite remarkable they are still in with a shout of qualifying for the Champions League with just 90 minutes of football to go.

Victory over Crystal Palace in this afternoon’s final game should ensure Jurgen Klopp’s team a place in Europe’s premier competition for next season. Well, unless Leicester City do something silly and beat Spurs 10-0.

Trophies and medals are the career landmarks that stand out when the time comes to hang up your boots

In fact, all Liverpool need to do is match Leicester’s result, whatever it is, and fourth place will have their name on it.

But, and I’m sure this will be a slightly unpopular suggestion, is qualifying for the Champions League in their best interest?

Let’s face it, Liverpool have been far from their scintillating best this season. Maybe a spell outside Europe with the focus on domestic success, combined with rebuilding the team, might have served them better.

Then again, you have a much better chance of rebuilding a team if you can offer CL football, so maybe not.

Either way, I’m pretty sure most Liverpool fans will be glad to see the back of 20/21…

Meanwhile, with the odds now stacked against them clinching a top four place, you have to wonder how Leicester keep letting Champions League football slip through their fingers.

This will be the second season in a row they have fallen out of the top four at the very end. And that must raise some serious questions over Brendan Rogers’ staying power and his ability to maintain performance levels.

However, they did win the FA Cup, and I am almost entirely certain that if, at the beginning of the season, you had given Leicester fans the choice between winning their first ever FA Cup or qualifying for the Champions League, they would have picked the former.

For some clubs (and indeed some owners), winning trophies and making history are more important than earning money.

And I would say Leicester and their owners fit nicely into that category.

1,200 and out

When Roy Hodgson started his football management career, Derby County were champions of England, Steve Jobs was launching a new little company called Apple, Concorde had just started carrying passengers, and the Premier League was -16 years old.

Forty-five years and 21 teams later, and the Crystal Palace manager is finally calling it a day, bowing out with an unrivalled reputation as one of the safest pairs of hands in the business.

Hodgson never pulled up any trees during his long career, which included spells in charge of Inter, Liverpool, Finland and England. He did win titles but in ‘lesser’ European leagues, like Sweden and Denmark. Yet while success on the biggest stage may have eluded him, his ability to bring stability to clubs was incomparable. You only have to look at what he has achieved at his boyhood club Palace in the past four years to see what Roy brings to the table, guiding them to mid-table safety every season.

His tactics, based heavily on a solid defence, aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. But the simple truth is you don’t take charge of more than 1,200 top level football matches if you don’t know a thing or two about management.

Although he will leave Selhurst Park on Sunday when the season draws to a close, Roy himself is not calling this ‘retirement’, insisting you never say never. At 74 you would imagine he is unlikely to get involved in day-to-day management again, but I wouldn’t rule him out of a director of football sort of role in the future.

His vast experience of the game is almost without comparison, and he comes across as the sort of man who would be only too happy to pass that on to the next generation of bosses.

I suspect we might not have seen the last of the grandfather of English football just yet…

email: james@quizando.com
twitter: @maltablade