Lethal Kane is worth at least that... according to West Ham’s captain!
MAURICIO Pochettino eventually gave up. Having declared his ‘love’ for Harry Kane, he threw his hands in the air and admitted he was all out of new ways to describe a striker who warrants almost constant redefinition.
Explaining the value of this player to his team has become an increasingly tough task, considering it is abundantly clear that Spurs employ one of the most lethal, versatile finishers in the global game.
His two goals in the 3-2 win over West Ham were cases in point, with the first a magnificent diving header made all the more impressive because it was a controlled glance at speed. A difficult finish brilliantly executed.
When it went in, Pochettino wore the look of a coach who knows he will be lucky to work with another striker of this quality again, even with the trajectory of his own managerial career. For good measure, the second goal, a side-footed volley into an open net, was harder than it looked.
The statistics are quite boggling, really. Even taking in his annual August siesta, the 24-year-old still has six goals in seven games for Spurs in all competitions this campaign, and 105 in 172 games covering less than three-and-a-half seasons.
For that reason, Pochettino can’t help but grin whenever he is mentioned and Daniel Levy, the Spurs chairman, must wonder how long he can pull off this incredible trick of keeping him happy on around £120,000 a week, probably less than half the market rate.
But sometimes the best view of a player is from those who face him and for that reason West Ham’s Mark Noble was fascinating after Saturday’s match, which Spurs led 3-0 courtesy of Kane and Christian Eriksen before Javier Hernandez and Cheikhou Kouyate made it interesting.
‘He easily has to be worth £100million-plus because he gets goals and goals in this game are hard to come by and you pay a premium for that,’ Noble said.
‘You can spend, like they did when they sold Gareth Bale — they went and spent £120m. But you bring Harry Kane back to the club, give him a chance and Pochettino puts his arm around him and he’s reaping the benefits of that now. He gets two chances and he scores two goals. I know for the second the ball came straight to him and he had an open net to pass it into but he’s always in the right place at the right time.
‘It’s not often you get a talent like Harry come through the ranks and score goals like he does. They have kept him too and if he keeps on playing like he is they are going to have to be strong to keep him.’
So far, Spurs have succeeded in doing just that, with Kane’s contract locked in until 2022. But from their perspective, the risk is that every excellent season makes an approach from one of Spain’s giants even more likely, and they make offers that a player cannot refuse.