As Tottenham’s form flounders, Harry Kane’s future is increasingly becoming the club’s elephant in the room.
Kane’s contract is up at the end of next season and, as things stands, it would be a surprise if he was rushing to agree a new deal.
The England captain has consistently made it clear that he is happy to stay at Spurs, provided the club is progressing and in a position to challenge for the major trophies he craves.
The stark reality, though, is that Spurs have gone backwards since finishing fourth last season, while head coach Antonio Conte recently admitted that his “challenge” is not to compete for the Premier League title or Champions League, but to build a “solid foundation” for the club to win future honours.
Kane is, in short, back where he started when he broke into the first team nine years ago: part of an imbalanced squad at the start of a new cycle, but now on the cusp of turning 30 and faced with an even more competitive Premier League landscape.
Spurs are just five points outside the top four and preparing for an FA Cup fourth-round tie at Preston and a Champions League last-16 clash against AC Milan, but they will have to dramatically improve to make this a successful season and convince Kane to commit the rest of his career to his boyhood club.
If Kane does not sign a new contract before the end of the campaign, Spurs will be faced with the unenviable position of either risking him entering the final year of his deal and potentially walking away for nothing in summer 2024 or selling their greatest modern player.
Spurs refused to entertain Kane’s desire to join Manchester City two years ago, but he would be in a much stronger position to determine his own future with a year remaining on his deal.
Kane would likely have offers from Germany and Spain, but he was previously reluctant to consider a move overseas while targeting the Premier League’s all-time scoring record. He is now 63 goals short of overhauling Alan Shearer.
Before the World Cup, City appeared to have moved beyond their interest in Kane by signing the free-scoring Erling Haaland, but the Norwegian’s struggles to influence the build-up increasingly suggest Kane, who is both a world-class No9 and No10, may have been a more astute signing after all.
Manchester United are perhaps more realistic suitors, after signing centre-forward Wout Weghorst on loan as a stop-gap until the end of the season.
Spurs still hope to persuade Kane that N17 is where his future lies, but the club would be hard-pressed to justify forcing him to stay put against his will again, given the series of disastrous decisions which have led them to this point — even if some were motivated by a misguided desire to keep him happy.
In appointing ‘win now’ managers in Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte, chairman Daniel Levy was influenced by having two world-class forwards in their prime in Kane and Heung-min Son, believing the pair were good enough to drag a crumbling squad to silverware under the guidance of one of the game’s foremost winners.
Kane, admittedly, was initially won over by both Mourinho and Conte, but the irony is that Spurs would now potentially be in a position to challenge for honours if Levy had heeded Pochettino’s warnings and properly backed the Argentine, or replaced him with another project coach who was equipped for a rebuild.
By cutting corners and trying to maximise the forward’s talent, Levy and the club have only wasted some of his best years, as the team got worse, even as Kane got better.
The club is now faced with paying a heavy price for its mistakes, with work to do to persuade its best player and talisman not to seek a new challenge in the next 18 months.
