Never a man for half-measures, Kane decides to score a hat trick instead.
For his third, he bears down on Fraser Forster, and instead of blasting it at the keeper’s near post, Kane gently lifts it across him, watching the ball sail in for his 56th goal in all competitions that year, two more than a certain Lionel Messi.
Look no further than this impudent passage of play, and the rampant goalscoring year that it concluded, as an explanation for why most Tottenham fans would look at you as if you’re speaking Ancient Greek if you suggested that Spurs might be better off selling the England captain.
But even Kane’s most ardent supporters have to admit that watching him hasn’t been as fun in recent seasons.
Sure, Kane managed 17 league goals last season, having missed ten games after damaging his ligaments against Manchester United, and provided some inspired performances, including a truly heroic carry-job against PSV Eindhoven which paved the road to the Champions League final.
20 - Harry Kane has scored 20 Champions League goals in just 24 appearances - the fastest a player has reached 20 goals in the competition's history. Heroic. pic.twitter.com/vgpkIIXLl1
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) November 26, 2019
Something, however, is undeniably missing - the air of inevitability when he works the ball onto his right foot at the edge of the box, the speed of execution when given a morsel of space in the penalty area, and above all the supreme self-confidence which took Kane to the Mount Olympus of strikers (even if it denied Raheem Sterling a World Cup semi-final goal).
What I’m suggesting might be sacrilege, but Kane’s somewhat cavalier attitude to recurring ankle injuries has clearly seen two of his defining attributes start to wither.
The first of these is the sheer volume of shots that Kane could get away in his prime. In 2017/18 Kane had the most shots on target in the league with 76, 18 more than his previous season (where he also led) and nine more than Golden Boot winner Mohamed Salah. But this term, Kane’s 2.8 shots per game are the 12th highest in the league, and one example at Carrow Road was particularly telling.
The ball broke kindly for Kane in the left-hand side of Norwich’s final third after ricocheting off Tanguy Ndombele, and the striker had acres of space in which to open the scoring. In his most recent Golden Boot season (2016/17) Kane scored this goal so often that he could have done it with his eyes closed, with the forward habitually taking the ball onto his right foot and rifling un-saveable flat shots into the corner.
Instead, Kane, lacking an extra yard of pace to separate himself from Norwich’s back line, panicked and squared it to Dele Alli in a much worse position.
Kane’s confidence in getting his shot away has in this sense been adversely affected by injury, but it’s also the type of shot he’s taking that’s the issue – bear with me here, because I’m going to sound like a football-ruining nerd.
Remember Kane’s incredible opener against Burnley? Get the feeling that he’s scored a few more tidy goals than usual?
The much-scorned tap-in merchant has indeed seen the light and embraced life beyond the back post. But is this a genuine positive?
The truth is that Kane was always pretty good at scoring goals few others strikers can manage, but now his problematic fitness is forcing him to lean too heavily on this part of his game and eschew the filthy penalty box finishes that are every elite striker’s bread and butter.
Kane’s xG (Expected Goals) per shot (with penalties excluded) is 0.10, a low for him since records began. For those of you who don’t spend an unhealthy amount of time reading graphs, this means that on average, Kane is less likely to score with each shot that he takes now, suggesting that his ability to get in scoring positions is somewhat declining.
The man has always been a bit of a freak when it comes to this stat, outperforming his xG because of how unstoppable his shooting is, but this trend shows him shying away from easier chances.
And no, the quality of his teammates is not an excuse - have you seen the conditions Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang have had to work under while filling their boots with close-range finishes that only a mother could love?
Kane’s brain still hasn’t slowed down - his extraordinary improvised finish away at Leicester proves that - but his inability to react as quickly to situations in the mixer shows that his body definitely has, and whether this undoubted decline is permanent should be a concern for Spurs.
The striker has been one of the few beneficiaries of the widespread stoppage of European football, with the additional cancellation of the Euros, meaning that for once he can properly recover from his latest ligaments injury suffered against Southampton on New Year's Day.
If Kane comes back and parties like it’s 2017 in terms of goal contribution and style of play, then Spurs should hang onto him for dear life - he looked set to become one of the all-time greats before injuries got involved, and he could be the difference between anonymity and challenging for a shocking Tottenham team.
But if not?
There are more than a few elite marksmen said to be on the market, with established names such as Mauro Icardi, Timo Werner, Gabriel Jesus and possibly Erling Braut Håland all predicted to be on the move.
While nobody knows what transfers post-coronavirus will look like, in theory Spurs could emulate Liverpool’s sale of Philippe Coutinho and turn a fee of around £120m for Kane, who may never be more valuable if he truly is declining, into two or three excellent additions to the squad.
With Kane too, perhaps, as he suggested to Jamie Redknapp on Instagram, a change of scene could be necessary to make the next step in his career, and both parties could have to accept that if you truly love something, you need to let it go.
Source: 90min
