KANE’S ABLE
Star striker is fully fit and raring to go
LOCKDOWN has had quite the effect on many of us. Home-made hair cuts, unkempt facial hair you could nest an owl in, an over-reliance on lounge wear.
No one is quite sure yet just how much of an impact the three-month hiatus will have had on the Premier League when it returns this week.
How much rust will have congealed around the joints? Will the intensity that embodies the competition be anywhere near the same? Will the lack of fans scrap home advantage in the same way we’ve seen in the Bundesliga? Will anyone come back stronger? No one, of course, wanted such a break and certainly not under the tragic circumstances that ground football to a halt three months ago. Yet from a football perspective, the hiatus came at time when Jose Mourinho and Tottenham were in desperate need of a reset.
Their form stank. A draw at Burnley followed league defeats to Chelsea and Wolves — all while crashing out of the Champions League to RB Leipzig without a goal over two legs.
Critics slammed Mourinho’s tactics. Mourinho cursed his team’s injuries to such an extent that it led t o hi m concocting a s t r ange analogy that compared his side’s struggles to being caught high up a building with collapsed stairs.
‘Now we are with our arms on the balcony on the fourth floor and we have two options,’ said Mourinho after the first-leg defeat to Leipzig. ‘One is to give up and fall and normally die because it’s the fourth floor. Another way is to fight with what we have — no stairs but arms.’
Three months with no football has given time to rebuild the stairs. Harry Kane tore a hamstring on New Year’s Day and was struggling to play again this season. Son Heung-min broke his arm in February. Moussa Sissoko had surgery in January on a knee ligament injury. Steven Bergwijn limped off in their last game against Burnley. All are now back. The quartet returned in a friendly against Norwich, albeit one that Spurs lost 2-1.
To have Kane back fit and firing is crucial if Mourinho is going to stand any chance of clawing back ground on the top four, with Spurs seven points behind Chelsea.
‘He looks fully fit, top fit, so we’re going to see the old Kane again,’ said Spurs defender Toby Alderweireld. ‘ He has been out for a longer period so his desire to show everyone is unbelievable. You’re going to see a very good Kane.’
The past three months have not only given injuries time to heal but, according to Alderweireld, the chance for the players to better understand their manager and what he wants from them.
Mourinho took over in November after the departure of Mauricio
Pochettino. Before the break, his team set up defensively but shipped goals and l acked i deas going forward. Is that about to change?
‘We have had time to work, especially tactically, because the manager came in during the middle of t he s eason and t here was no t i me t o work,’ s ai d Alderweireld.
‘ A lot of it is tactical. More in detail. In the beginning, it was mor e the big things, how we want to press, but now it is more in the detail. We have worked more on the detail of what every position needs and what we need to do as a team in different systems. We have had more time to know how he wants to play the game as a team, but as individuals as well.’
‘We have discussed things, so it is a good opportunity to start all over again. It i s a big nine games coming up.’