Spurs players losing patience with Mourinho over criticism
National team captain is better all-round player than his rivals for the honour, Lineker and Greaves
Tottenham Hotspur players are losing patience with head coach Jose Mourinho pointing the finger at them and insinuating that they are not good enough to challenge for a top-four place.
Mourinho saw his team squander the chance to move into the top four of the Premier League after conceding a late equaliser to relegationthreatened Newcastle United on Sunday. After the game, the Portuguese gave the withering reply, “Same coach, different players”, when asked why he was having so much trouble reproducing the ability to hold on to a lead, as he has done so well at other clubs.
Mourinho has consistently suggested that some of his players, particularly his defenders, are not capable of performing at a better standard, while never doubting their work ethic or desire. But it is understood that players are getting fed up with what they feel has become blame being shifted in their direction and away from Mourinho.
There was also confusion over Mourinho’s explanation of Toby Alderweireld’s absence from his team at Newcastle, as he claimed the Belgian had returned from international duty to training only the day before the game. But photographs and video showed Alderweireld training on Thursday and Friday, as well as Saturday, leaving players mystified as to whether Mourinho had made a genuine error.
It is unclear how Mourinho’s assessment of the players has been received by chairman Daniel Levy, who previously backed them by sacking former manager Mauricio Pochettino rather than overhauling the squad. Pochettino had spoken of the need to reinvigorate the team.
But time may be running out for Mourinho. As previously reported, RB Leipzig manager Julian Nagelsmann is Tottenham’s first choice as a replacement.
Is Harry Kane one golden summer away from laying claim to being England’s greatest ever striker? Having won the Golden Boot as the top scorer in the last World Cup, a repeat showing at Euro 2020 would surely strengthen his case.
Although Wayne Rooney is England’s all-time record goalscorer, with 53 in 120 games, few would dispute his greatest achievements and performances were with Manchester United rather than his country, barring one brilliant summer at Euro 2004.
Sir Bobby Charlton is second, with 49 goals in 106 games, and won the World Cup in 1966 and the Ballon d’or in the same year, but although he wore the No 9 shirt he was an attacking midfielder, not a centre-forward.
No, as a striker, it would appear to come down to a comparison between Jimmy Greaves, Gary Lineker and, if he excels this summer, the man who succeeded them as Tottenham’s spearhead – Kane.
Take a snapshot of his past few days: scoring the opening goals in the World Cup qualifiers against Albania and Poland and then returning to Spurs to score twice more. That brace against Newcastle means he has reached at least 30 goals for club and country for the sixth time in seven seasons. Even in the other campaign he scored 27 times.
Kane is one goal away from joining Robbie Fowler as the Premier League’s seventh-best all-time scorer with 163 goals, having played – remarkably – 141 fewer games. In just 120 appearances away from home Kane has scored 84 Premier League goals, the most by any player.
By any measure he is a phenomenon. It is by a quirk of fate that Greaves, Lineker and Kane all played for Tottenham, whose fans will curse their luck in having three genuine greats but still finding silverware so elusive. Greaves won the FA Cup twice plus the European Cup Winners’ Cup and Lineker the FA Cup. Kane, as if he needed reminding, has nothing.
In these Premier Leagueobsessed times, Greaves’s luminous achievements, in particular, are often scandalously overlooked. He averaged 0.7 goals per game for his club, and 0.77 for his country; Lineker boasted a record at Spurs above 0.6 goals per game, but Kane is even closer to Greaves at 0.68.
The numbers show they are all exceptional and, maybe, for England it is Lineker whom Kane has to emulate, because of what he did in finals.
Greaves played in all four of England’s games in the 1962 World Cup, scoring once, then started the three group games in 1966, without scoring, before losing his place for the last-eight tie against Argentina to Sir Geoff Hurst through a nasty injury.
In 1986, Lineker was the World Cup top scorer with six goals – the same as Kane achieved in 2018 – as England reached the quarter-finals and also impressed four years later in the campaign that ended in semi-final defeat, scoring four more. No England striker has had more than two outstanding tournaments so, if Kane matches or exceeds Lineker’s feat at the Euros, he may edge ahead of him and Greaves.
There is one extra dimension, for it can be argued that of those three strikers, Kane is a far better all-round player.
Lineker was the ultimate “fox in the box”, the poacher supreme. Greaves, an inside forward, was the most natural of the three with his mixture of speed and poise as he passed the ball into the net. What marks out Kane is not just how hard he works but that all facets of his play are so impressive. He is a nine and a 10. He has 13 league assists for Spurs this season, then there is his ability to pass the ball as well as any playmaker, his hold-up play and his effectiveness at defending set-pieces. He is good at everything.
He is a complete modern footballer. There is the variety – right foot, left foot, headers, inside and outside the box, his set-piece ability – as well as the goals. He also rises to the big occasion, with 29 of his England goals having come in competitive fixtures. The argument whether he is world-class has already been won.
His biggest assets are his mentality and his presence. It is partly why, when discussing who might win Euro 2020, England are in the mix. If Kane can achieve one more memorable tournament, then England not only have a chance of winning it, but he can settle the debate over who is the nation’s greatest.