Here’s a question to mull over while sipping your Sunday morning latte: is Harry Kane’s brilliance actually holding Tottenham Hotspur back?
When you’ve finished wiping up your coffee, think about it a bit, because although it sounds utterly ludicrous to say that about a player who has scored 264 goals for the club, there might actually be some substance to that theory.
Kane rescued a below-par Spurs on Wednesday night, scoring two and setting up another two in their 4-0 win over Crystal Palace. It was the umpteenth time Harry’s goals or assists have secured points for Tottenham this season. Just as there have been umpteen times he’s done that in every season.
And while that obviously sounds like a positive, I am starting to wonder if this constant reliance on Kane doing something special is stunting their growth as a team.
Many good managers have been in charge of the club during the decade Kane has been at Spurs – José Mourinho, Mauricio Pochettino and now Antonio Conte are all big, big names who between them should have been able to rustle up at least one trophy.
Yet the ultimate result has always been the same: they come close to success, have some good spells and flirt with the top places and the latter stages of the cups but never achieve anything tangible. That they haven’t won a sausage since Harry was in the team has led me to ponder that maybe he is the problem rather than the solution.
Are the other players relying on him too much? Are managers abandoning their preferred systems to play to Kane’s strengths? And, most pertinently, would the other players be more likely to blend as a team if they didn’t have a superstar stealing the limelight?
I don’t have the answers to this, of course. But if there is some sense in my thought process, the club might be wise to cash in on their talisman now and use the money to start afresh.
The club might be wise to cash in on their talisman now and use the money to start afresh
They have been trying the ‘rely on Harry’ approach for a long time and it obviously isn’t having the desired results. And, at 29, he isn’t going to be around at the top level for many more years. If Spurs sell their prized asset now they can still get silly money for him. In a couple of years that won’t be the case.
Obviously, life without Kane will be hard at first, but if Spurs ever want to break the cycle of being perpetual also-rans, then a Kane-less future might be what they need.
Saints praying for a turnaround
When a desperate, relegation-threatened club appoint a new manager, they are normally looking for an instant upturn in fortunes; a new manager bounce, so to speak.
Things are not exactly panning out that way for Southampton.
The Premier League strugglers fired Ralph Hasenhüttl back in November and moved swiftly to replace him with Nathan Jones a few days later, hoping the former Luton Town boss could claw them out of trouble.
Then came the World Cup and a break from competitive action, which should have given Jones the time he needed to work with the players and hit the ground running when the league resumed.
But it hasn’t so much been a case of hitting the ground running as hitting the ground face first; and staying there. Four games, four defeats, and after losing at home to Nottingham Forest last Wednesday, the club are now rock bottom.
Worrying for the club’s owners, the latest setback saw the fans turn on their new boss with jeering at the final whistle followed by chants of “you don’t know what you’re doing”. And that is never a good sign.
Jones is trying to take it all in his stride, admitting he knew there would be scepticism among the fans about his appointment due to his lack of top-flight managerial experience.
“It’s not the first time I’ve been booed, it’s not the first time I’ve taken stick. You have to show real characteristics that bring you through this because when we come through it, it will be a proud moment for me,” he said.
The problem is, Nathan, this is the Premier League.
Even a massively experienced manager would feel under threat if he took over a team and led them to four straight defeats.
I don’t doubt, having seen what Jones did with Luton, that he has the skills needed to steer Southampton through these troubled waters and out the other side.
But I do doubt, with the way clubs fear relegation from the Premier League, whether he will be given the chance to put those skills into action...
A deserved pay day
I read an article last week that suggested Cristiano Ronaldo had ‘given up on football’ by signing a two-year deal with Al-Nassr.
To be honest, if I were to write down everything I know about Saudi Arabian domestic football it would fit it on the back of a postage stamp... with space to spare for a short shopping list.
However, I think it’s fairly safe to say the standard of the football and the intensity of the compaction is going to be considerably lower than in Europe. Maybe English Championship level, if I had to take a guess.
But, from Cristiano’s point of view, so the heck what?
He has played for Real Madrid, Manchester United and Juventus – arguably three of the biggest teams in the world – and won more titles, cups, trophies and awards than you can shake a stick at.
At 37, and with his ability undeniably fading, why shouldn’t he take a little step back from the rough and tumble of top-level football to soak up the Saudi sun while slipping half a billion euros into his back pocket?
As the man himself said, his work in Europe is done. He doesn’t need to prove anything to anyone. He’s been there, done that and bought the carefully branded CR7 T-shirt.
Cristiano’s decades of hard work and obsessive dedication to being the very best has earned him a final pay day. He may have ‘given up’ on elite football but only after giving so much to the game as a whole. If he wants to spend the twilight years of his glittering football career stuffing his pockets with Saudi riyals, then good for him.
There aren’t many of us in any walk of life that wouldn’t do exactly the same thing if the gold-plated opportunity like that came knocking on our door.
E-Mail: James@Quizando.com
Twitter: @Maltablade