3 days ago, Harry Kane told The Mirror that he was feeling great.
“As a team we can all do better and as the striker you get spoken about more, but I feel sharp and fit and if I wasn’t the manager would not be picking me.
Sadly, there’s a gulf between how the 25 year old feels and how what he’s delivering ion the pitch.
Harry’s not scoring, nor is his he contributing very much elsewhere.
Kane is an unreliable witness.
Fatigue?
In addition to his occasion England duties, Kane is averaging 90 minutes every game for Spurs, primarily because there aren’t any other credible options.
Fernando Llorente has by and large been a gigantic waste of rations.
Whilst the familiar argument about What striker would sign to spend most games sat on the bench? will be wheeled out, it is endemic of Pochettino’s limited purview that not even the services of an up and coming youngster could be secured to feature in domestic cup competitions and be used when the main man is clearly flagging.
This problem cannot be readily addressed because we didn’t buy anyone in the summer and there was nobody capable within then Academy to step up.
Service?
A massive issue for Kane has been the dismally poor level of service from the Tottenham midfield.
Instead of Dele Alli and Lucas Moura operating as shadow-strikers, Kane could really do with more players behind him creating some solid support to fuel his chances up front.
Even a cursory glance at Spurs’ passing stats tells us that the bulk of our possession is well in our own half.
In the attacking third, Tottenham are pitifully light.
Here are the top 10 passing links from our last 3 games.
I’m mindful that that there will be a lesser degree of action in in attacking positions, but even so, Spurs weren’t a threat in any of these matches because they could barely get the ball through the midfield with any regularity.
To support this, Tottenham edged the possession in all of these games, and lost all of them.
In fact, one could argue, the more we had of the ball, the worse it got.
When searching for the shortfall in the team, it doesn’t take very long to identify what the problems are.
The core area of concern is our midfield, and so its little wonder that Eric Dier has taken a bit of a hammering lately.
This algebra is true.
With this combination, Tottenham are producing fewer chances in advanced areas.
Fewer chances because our midfield in all 3 games has been the less dominant one.
Less domination, fewer shots.
Fewer shots, fewer goals.
Here are the player influences for Inter that emphasise just how meek we are in the middle.
This problem cannot be readily addressed because we didn’t buy anyone in the summer and there was nobody capable within then Academy to step up.
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