Leicester 1-6 Tottenham: In Focus - Harry Kane

Aditya Devavrat 01:30 19/05/2017
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  • Tottenham, who are guaranteed to finish second place this season, took on the team to whom they lost out on the Premier League title last year on Thursday night.

    Perhaps the previous campaign’s failed chase of Leicester City provided added motivation for Spurs. They absolutely dismantled the defending champions on their home patch, winning 6-1.

    Harry Kane bagged four goals to take pole position in the Premier League Golden Boot race – he began the night two behind Everton’s Romelu Lukaku and ended it two in front, on 26 – with Heung-min Son scoring the other two in a dominant performance.

    Here, we focus on four-goal hero Harry Kane.

    BASIC STATS

    Goals – 4

    Assists – 1

    Shots – 10

    Pass Accuracy – 70%

    Passes – 16/23

    Key Passes – 2

    Touches – 50

    Dribbles – 4

    Dispossessed – 2

    EFFECTIVENESS

    Until Kane’s two late goals, he arguably wasn’t even the standout player of the match – Son had a brilliant first half and added a second goal in the second half (from a Kane run and assist, it should be said).

    But that is the essence of Harry Kane. The Englishman may at times get overshadowed by the more mercurial talents of Dele Alli, the genius of Christian Eriksen, and the all-around play of Son, but he is undoubtedly a brilliant player in his own right, and he comes up with decisive moments.

    KEY MOMENTS

    29th min: It had been an open game up for the first half an hour, but Kane made sure to grab the game’s first goal and put his side in command. Son got behind the Leicester defence and cut the ball back for Kane, who finished with aplomb.

    63rd min: One of the easier goals Kane will score in his career. The striker’s poaching skills came to the fore as he converted a header from two yards out after Victor Wanyama pulled the ball across the face of goal.

    89th min: Seal the hat-trick, take the lead in the Golden Boot race – the moment Kane had been searching for since he scored his second on the night. Leicester basically allowed Spurs to have shooting practice towards the end of the game, and Kane didn’t need further invitation, coolly finishing from just outside the box with a strike that left Foxes keeper Kasper Schmeichel wrong-footed.

    92nd min: The icing on the cake. Again, Leicester stood off Kane at the edge of the box, and he punished them with a precise strike into Schmeichel’s bottom right-hand corner.

    OUR VERDICT

    He took ten shots and only scored four times – a bad night for Harry Kane?

    Jokes aside, the 23-year-old had the perfect outing, taking command of the Golden Boot race with a four-goal display. That race had seemed set for a thrilling final-day shootout between Kane, Lukaku, and Alexis Sanchez, and it could still happen, but Kane will face Hull City on Sunday while Lukaku and Sanchez face off against each other, so he’s in the driving seat.

    The Spurs man has 26 goals on the season with one left to play – and that’s after having had two separate injury layoffs during the season. How many would he have gotten without those setbacks – and, the more tantalizing question, would the title race still be on if Kane hadn’t missed time through injury?

    10/10

    YOUR VERDICT

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