Shot-shy striker is casting doubt over whether he can defy the critics again

Kane is taking fewer efforts on goal since return from injury in April

Experience should tell us that writing off Harry Kane is a hazardous and foolhardy proposition. The player who spent much of his early career on loan, only to become the one-season wonder still going strong four years later, has enough goals behind him to suggest he is not suddenly about to stop scoring at the age of 25.

Social media was still duly rammed with angry opinion – mostly asking whether Kane was even playing – following a fourth consecutive game without a goal in Tottenham Hotspur’s 2-1 defeat by Liverpool.

Equally predictable was Mauricio Pochettino’s insistence that he has no concerns about a player in whom expectations are so elevated. And yet it was a further comment – “If someone knows him really well I think we do” – that really intrigued. What does Pochettino know?

You can be sure Spurs will have their own detailed data and conclusions about Kane (right) and, beneath all the noisy perceptions, that will tell us much about both what makes him so good and this current dip. They also certainly very clearly suggest that something has changed since Kane returned from his ankle injury in April.

Kane is what football statisticians would deem an “outlier” in terms of his “expected goals”. This is a mechanism by which players and teams are assessed according to the positions they get into and how often they would usually be expected to score over a long period of time.

This is useful because football’s sheer randomness can make even the length of one season a limited period to make definite conclusions.

Kane’s deadly finishing is reflected in how he has always converted an unusually high proportion of chances. Such consistency has led most scouts to accept he is simply exceptional in front of goal and that this is not some unsustainable golden streak. There is, however, a second statistic that is increasingly relevant. Since coming back from his injury, there has been a drop in the number of shots Kane is taking. According to C&N Sporting Risk, a sports analytics company that predictively models performance, Kane was taking almost six shots per game before his ankle injury last season. That figure was just under four through 2016-17 and yet, since April, it has been 2.37. Not including penalties, Kane had only 11 shots in seven matches at the World Cup. This is an admittedly limited sample period – and Kane has previously found a way through lean spells – but it is this aspect that will most concern Spurs. One theory, rejected by Kane, is that it is an issue of fatigue following the World Cup. Another is that his pace and sharpness have been affected by the ankle injury. Perhaps most convincing is the service from the likes of Christian Eriksen and Dele Alli has dipped.

The wider worry is whether it could affect his confidence and, in turn, threaten his conversion rate.

Yes, it is early in the season – and the numbers are as yet only mildly troubling – but whether Kane will keep defying the statistical norms has become an increasingly pertinent question.

One theory is his pace and sharpness has been affected by the ankle injury. Another is fatigue

It is easy in football to become excessively swayed by whatever happened most recently but the accounts this week at Manchester City – just a few days before Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s 10-year missive to the fans – underlined that their operation has not been quite so perfectly executed as many assume.

In the decade since Sheikh Mansour completed his takeover, he has invested almost £1.5 billion in City. For that, the club have three Premier League titles, an FA Cup, three League Cups and one Champions League semi-final.

Roman Abramovich has been at Chelsea five years longer and spent just under £1.2 billion. Much of that outlay also went before Sheikh Mansour arrived but, even since the City takeover in 2008, Chelsea have won more. They also have three Premier League titles in that specific period, but four FA Cups, a Champions League, a Europa League and a League Cup.

Manchester United have also fared better than City in this past decade. Their tally is three Premier Leagues, an FA Cup, three League Cups, a Club World Cup, a Europa League and two Champions League final appearances.

Saturday’s promise by the Sheikh to keep recruiting “the very best” – and his assertion that they are only halfway up “our Everest” – had an ominous sound but the first half of that ascent, while also about laying foundations from a lower base, has shown they are fallible.