Alan Shearer has claimed that Harry Kane would score just as many goals in this current Manchester City team as Erling Haaland.
The pair are leading the goalscoring charts early on, though Haaland has netted an extraordinary 15 Premier League goals from just nine games. Whilst Kane's eight in nine is also impressive, he's already seven behind the Norwegian, who doesn't look like he's going to hit a dry spell anytime soon.
If Haaland doesn't suffer an injury, he could break several records before the season is out. Shearer justifiably believes he's a sensational player but he also thinks Kane would produce similar numbers if he played under Pep Guardiola.
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"It could all have been very different if Pep Guardiola got his way last season and they’d signed Harry Kane," he wrote in The Athletic. "There might not have been room for Haaland and he may have been carrying out these incredible goalscoring feats somewhere else. But if Harry was in this City team, he would be scoring as many goals as Erling has.
"This is dreamland for any top forward. I’ve said it all along — a top goalscorer in this City team should score 40 goals. If Erling stays fit then he’ll get that and maybe even some more.
"Harry’s record tells you that he would do that, too. There’s no doubt what Pep thinks about Harry and what the vast majority of other people think about him as well. He is a top goalscorer: he’s got eight in nine league games so far, which we’d be talking about a lot more if it wasn’t for Erling."
Shearer continued by explaining that Kane isn't scoring as many goals as Haaland at the moment because Tottenham play a completely different way. The former England international believes that Spurs can't match City's creativity in midfield which means Kane has to drop deeper to help aid his side's attack.
"That’s in a team where he also has to do a lot of the creative work," he added. "At Spurs, Harry will go deeper, which he quite enjoys doing, to link up with Son. Erling doesn’t — he’s not that bothered about being involved in the game. He just wants that one opportunity. Then another. And another. He doesn’t have to do the other stuff because the creativity is elsewhere. Whereas at Tottenham that creativity — certainly from the midfield — is not always there.
"If you put Harry in that City team, they would encourage him to stay up top more rather than coming deep to get involved in the game. I don’t think they would have taken that away from him totally, but they would want him to be more of a focal point.
"They’ve got other players who can do the stuff he does when he drops deep: Bernardo Silva, Kevin De Bruyne, Phil Foden, Jack Grealish, Riyad Mahrez. There would be no need for Harry to come as deep as he would at Spurs or even with England."
Although Shearer has admirably backed-up his claim, it's likely to be a controversial opinion. Nevertheless, Tottenham fans will take comfort in the fact that they've held onto their star striker for yet another year whilst Kane will be hoping that he can help Spurs to finally break their trophy duck this season.
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