Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
TOTTENHAM 2 WEST BROM 0
Second-highest scorer in Tottenham’s history.. but vital Kane offers so much more than goals to this side
CALL him a history-maker, call him a talisman... what you also have to call Harry Kane is simply irreplaceable.
You could make a case for Tottenham relying so heavily on him as a negative. A oneman team, or the ‘Harry Kane team’ as Pep Guardiola famously called them.
Or you could celebrate Kane’s brilliance.
But he is so important to Tottenham that they rushed him back just 11 days and two training sessions after an ankle injury which threatened to keep him out for weeks.
His opener eased the pressure on manager Jose Mourinho because anything other than a win against this struggling West Brom team would have been unthinkable.
Kane broke the deadlock for his 208th career goal for Tottenham, making him their joint-second-highest scorer alongside Bobby Smith, with only Jimmy Greaves in front of them. It is his seventh successive season of scoring more than 20 goals.
And he is now joint-second in the Premier League goal charts for this season, alongside team-mate Heung-min Son. Only Liverpool’s Mo
Salah has more. But that man
Kane contributes more than goals to this Tottenham team.
After a goalless first half, they looked short of ideas and confidence until he struck.
Without him they look average; with him they are a team re-energised.
Mourinho’s men had lost their three previous Premier League games – their worst run in nine years – and fans have been getting restless.
But with Kane back, anything seems possible.
He rules the roost, even staying on until the end when surely most would expect him to be substituted.
And there he was, back in his own penalty area in the 90th minute defending a corner.
Kane is back to save Mourinho and Tottenham’s season.
They face Everton in the FA Cup on Wednesday, make the trip to Manchester City next
Saturday, and then it’s Wolfsburg in the Europa League the following Thursday.
No wonder they rushed him back. Poor old West Brom look beyond help – even master firefighter Sam Allardyce cannot save this sorry bunch.
It does actually make you wonder whether Big Sam has lost his Red Adair touch because the new manager bounce has never arrived.
West Brom have conceded 28 goals in 10 games under Allardyce – which equals the most conceded by any new manager in the Premier League
– and his ability to set up a team, make them hard to beat, seems to have gone as well. They were resilient in the first half but crumbled in the second.
For the first goal, West Brom left Kane all alone in the box, which is never a good idea.
Ainsley Maitland-niles had a solid enough debut for them but that alone is not enough and they look doomed already. They are 11 points adrift of the safety zone and, since stealing a point in a 1-1 draw at Anfield in December they have lost six and drawn one of eight matches. Three of those defeats were by heavy 5-0, 5-0 and 4-0 margins
Their goalkeeper Sam Johnstone kept them in the match in the first half with a super save to deny Serge Aurier while Kane hit the angle of post and crossbar.
But the breakthrough finally arrived after 54 minutes.
Pierre-emile Hojbjerg played a wonderful through-ball to release Kane, who side-footed a shot into the far corner.
Kane was involved in the second goal four minutes later with a clever chested flick to Lucas Moura. Moura raced forward and fed Son, who smashed a shot past Johnstone.
West Brom twice had the ball in the net from Mbaye Diagne but both times the flag went up for clear offside.
Tottenham, and Kane, more than deserved the win.