Two elite, 28-year-old strikers face-off at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday after a decade of changing fortunesPredator versus predator. There will be a strong temptation when Spurs and Chelsea walk out at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday afternoon to view the latest instalment of this edgy, at times rather sour London rivalry through the prism of Rom and Harry.It is a natural comparison, a meeting of 28-year-old alpha-dog centre-forwards whose careers have converged without ever quite intersecting, a decade-long dance at one remove. As long ago as 2010 Tottenham were trying to sign the 17-year-old Romelu Lukaku of Anderlecht, already a darling of European football and a player who seemed on a different trajectory from the more homespun Harry...
Defeats in Champions League final, Community Shield and at Spurs have exposed a familiar failing but are City prepared to spend £160m to solve it?The roles were reversed at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday. By the end, with Tottenham sticking to Nuno Espírito Santo’s plan after Son Heung-min’s clever breakaway goal, it was Manchester City who looked like they needed to become the Harry Kane team. Spurs had found a way to play without Kane, striking on the counterattack, and City had allowed the game to run away from them, their lack of conviction in attack a worry despite the presence of a £100m signing making his first start.Early days, of course, and it is fair to acknowledge that...
Tottenham striker has been criticised but he has a right to be selfish – and to question the club’s inaction over past two yearsThe tendency always is to oversimplify, to try to find one person to blame: if only he had acted better, if only he had done his job properly. But it is rarely about that – or rarely just about that. The agency of individuals should not be denied. Harry Kane and Daniel Levy have played their parts in the continuing saga of the forward’s proposed move to Manchester City. But this is also about wider economic forces.Over the past week or so the majority of the focus has been on Kane. Already there is a sense his...
Tottenham striker has let himself down by failing to turn up and his move will only harden Daniel Levy’s positionSo now we know. Harry Kane really is prepared to do whatever it takes to force a move from Tottenham to Manchester City. The question had nagged away since the final week of last season when Kane and his camp had given the definitive signal that they wanted out and the battle lines were drawn, with Daniel Levy, the Spurs chairman, digging in and refusing to countenance the sale.Would Kane be prepared to activate the nuclear option and withdraw his cooperation at Spurs? Surely not, most people had hoped, because to do the dirty like this would be so unbecoming of...
Kane tried to play his usual dual role but ended up tripping over himself as his attacking colleagues ran in circlesPerhaps it really was the end times. Perhaps it really was the nadir. Perhaps it really was the worst England performance we had seen in a generation. Certainly it will feel that way to Gareth Southgate and his team as they awaken this morning to the scalding verdict of a scornful nation, still seething at being forced to give up a perfectly good Friday night for that.It wasn’t an awful game, as such. But given the froth and bubble of the buildup, it felt just a little hollow, a little oversold: like the slap-up meal that ends up being served...