Harry Kane | Bayern Munich player

[Doracle]

He would indeed.

But accepting we're not winning the league next season regardless, the question is whether he'll be get us closer to a title in the 24/25, 25/26, and 26/27 seasons than other strikers we might sign now will at that point. Because if we're signing a CF to win us things, it's across those seasons they'll be doing it.

We want a world class CF next season. But we need a world class CF in two, three and four seasons' time.

And having to project (and depend on) these various options' level across that period makes it a trickier question. Some posters seem to want us to avoid having to make that projection at all by banking on the certainty of Kane's short term quality, but football doesn't work that way. You need to plan ahead.

If you're spending 80-100m on Kane now, you need to be very confident he'll still be more of a title winning CF in two or three seasons time than any of the younger CFs you could buy instead will be. If he will be, great, sign Kane. If he won't be, you have to ask why you're prioritising season where you're less likely to win things. Either way, what he'll do next season doesn't answer that question either way.

A season in any way similar to this one and Kane should be sufficient to get us close to a title challenge AND a contender for the CL. In any event, it would be simply astonishing if we signed him and didn’t make top 4, which is the minimum we need to keep signing the players we need.

In order to splash our budget on one of the young strikers now, rather than Kane, you need to be very certain that they are good enough to hit the ground running in the premier league now AND have a reasonable expectation that they will be as good or better than Harry Kane in 2-3 years time. Get it wrong and we are down in 5th/6th this season and losing significant funding, potentially sacking our manager and needing to rebuild again.

 

[sullydnl]

Or he could y’know, win us a lucky Champions League. It’s far easier to win that the PL for the next two turns.

Get the lad in, he’ll score boatloads of goals, we can buy a red hot number 9 in 3 years.

Sure, any of god knows how many teams could win a lucky CL. We're presumably aiming for something more than the hope of a fluke season though.

We straight-up can't afford to spend 80-100m on Kane now and then a similar premium price on a replacement CF in 3 years' time. We already have many other issues to deal with at the moment, more issues will emerge across those three years and all of it will have to be addressed under the already chafing financial fair play regulations that (I think I'm right in saying) only get more strict over coming seasons. If that's dead money in three years, we shouldn't be spending it.

 

[sullydnl]

A season in any way similar to this one and Kane should be sufficient to get us close to a title challenge AND a contender for the CL. In any event, it would be simply astonishing if we signed him and didn’t make top 4, which is the minimum we need to keep signing the players we need.

In order to splash our budget on one of the young strikers now, rather than Kane, you need to be very certain that they are good enough to hit the ground running in the premier league now AND that they will be as good or better than Harry Kane in 2-3 years time. Get it wrong and we are down in 5th/6th this season and losing significant funding, potentially sacking our manager and needing to rebuild again.

Whatever about the CL (which is very luck dependent), I don't think adding Kane to the current team gets us anywhere near as close to a title next season as you seem to. And once we're not actually winning the title next season, how close we finish to the winners is pretty irrelevant compared to where we think we'll be in the following season(s).

All we need for next season is to strengthen enough to be confident of finishing in the top four. Once the CF we sign is of sufficient quality to allow us to do that (in conjunction with other signings), that's fine. At that point how good we project them being in the following season(s) matters an awful lot more, because we will need to be competing at that point.

And given the options we currently have, and the underperformance in front of goal you mentioned in another post, a younger striker doesn't need to hit Kane-like figures in their first season to still improve us quite enormously. Even relatively ordinary strikers like Toney, Watkins and Rodrigo have scored something like 2-3 times the amount of goals all our CFs managed combined this season, improving on them for next season is the lowest hanging fruit.

 

[Siorac]

I'm pretty sure we would also be on ~80 pts now had we signed him last summer, which would be a title challenge this season, albeit probably not in other seasons where you need ~95 pts to win the Premier League.

If City win their remaining two games, they'll finish on 94 points. So even this season you'd need 95 to win the league.

(of course it's possible they'll rest players with the league already won but based on the last half a decade we can safely assume that with a stronger challenger they'd keep going until the very last minute)

 

[cyberman]

Said this before, but whilst I agree that Kane alone wouldn't win this team the title, I'm pretty sure we would also be on ~80 pts now had we signed him last summer, which would be a title challenge this season, albeit probably not in other seasons where you need ~95 pts to win the Premier League.

And it's not like there's a player out there that would single handedly win us anything, so it's a dumb argument either way. Kane is the best striker we can get, even though he's turning 30 in 2 months. He's likely got 3-4 years left at the highest level.

A striker less side isn’t gaining 9/10 points with a world class striker slotted in, you’re looking at 15/18 points at least imo.
It’s a strange season for us, you can’t really argue there isn’t enough goals around the team to mount a challenge if we sign Kane since we are odds on to finish with 75 points and a third place finish without him.

 

[UnrelatedPsuedo]

Sure, any of god knows how many teams could win a lucky CL. We're presumably aiming for something more than the hope of a fluke season though.

We straight-up can't afford to spend 80-100m on Kane now and then a similar premium price on a replacement CF in 3 years' time. We already have many other issues to deal with at the moment, more issues will emerge across those three years and all of it will have to be addressed under the already chafing financial fair play regulations that (I think I'm right in saying) only get more strict over coming seasons. If that's dead money in three years, we shouldn't be spending it.

Nah. Just accept that your centre forward costs you approximately £15-20m a year, forever. Most expensive position on the pitch, rightly or wrongly.

£80m for four seasons is great. If we have to spend £100m after that in a replacement, aiming at a slightly younger player you can keep for 5 seasons.

Alvarez going for that fee to City is what gets me cross. He’s up there with the best in my opinion. Class player, would have suited us so much.

 

[MexicanCowboy]

Such a waste he hasn't played for a big club yet. I hope you get him. He would be the perfect player for you. Even if it's only for 3-4 years.

 

[Siorac]

A striker less side isn’t gaining 9/10 points with a world class striker slotted in, you’re looking at 15/18 points at least imo.

Again, this is delusional. You are essentially saying that with the addition of Harry Kane, we are as good as Manchester City.

 

[MexicanCowboy]

A striker less side isn’t gaining 9/10 points with a world class striker slotted in, you’re looking at 15/18 points at least imo.
It’s a strange season for us, you can’t really argue there isn’t enough goals around the team to mount a challenge if we sign Kane since we are odds on to finish with 75 points and a third place finish without him.

That depends on how many chances are actually created. Unless you have Messi, most goal scorers depend a lot on the quantity and quality of the chances they get.

 

[dwd]

Hope it happens so much, he would be perfect for us.

 

[gajender]

Again, this is delusional. You are essentially saying that with the addition of Harry Kane, we are as good as Manchester City.

Agreed it's absolutely delusional and so far from reality .

As if these guys are willfully ignoring that we got our asses handed over at almost every away ground against any half decent opposition and they believe Kane would suddenly elevate us to gain additional 18 points on our travels because that's what needs to happen for title challenge as our home form only have very limited scope of improvement in terms points gains if we end winning our last two games.

 

[cyberman]

Again, this is delusional. You are essentially saying that with the addition of Harry Kane, we are as good as Manchester City.

No, I’m saying 20/25 goals from a position that gives us 0 would make a huge difference to our points total and league position.
Unless Martial and Weghorst off the ball play is so out of this world that it negates 30 goals from Kane so the Spurs man would make us worse?

 

[bosnian_red]

A striker less side isn’t gaining 9/10 points with a world class striker slotted in, you’re looking at 15/18 points at least imo.
It’s a strange season for us, you can’t really argue there isn’t enough goals around the team to mount a challenge if we sign Kane since we are odds on to finish with 75 points and a third place finish without him.

Points gained is a weird one year on year. You could argue (validly) that we don't really deserve 75 points based on play. I do think that's roughly our level, but getting that points while having the fixture congestion/cup success we have had is what is flukey IMO. We've been remarkably consistent at grinding out results in games we should win pretty much, and usually you have a few that you feck up.

We are significantly underperforming our xG for example... But I don't think that's ever cost us in terms of results. We're about 7.5 points above expected points which shows that. So if we end the season with roughly 65 expected points, 75 actual points, I could see a striker like Kane pumping us to the mid to high 70's in expected points, which is also a points total that feels like it would be good next year with a striker. I think our play will improve, it's just unlikely we stay as consistent in terms of grinding results. Next season is about cementing our position, competing in the CL, and dominate games more often.

Also in terms of all competitions - it's something that can swing you 10 points one way or another IMO. Busy schedule like ours and I think the underlying stats will suffer as they have, whereas if you have plenty of time in between then they can be inflated (Newcastle, Brighton, Arsenal). So our scenario of challenging for the title is improving our analytics and not having fixture congestion in a way that can inflate our numbers another 10 points or so.

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

People really need to stop looking at football as just "Plug in x player that scored y amount of goals and add those goals to our current tally! Title challenge!"

City need 6 goals from these final two games to equal last years total after adding the Viking

 

[Siorac]

People really need to stop looking at football as just "Plug in x player that scored y amount of goals and add those goals to our current tally! Title challenge!"

City need 6 goals from these final two games to equal last years total after adding the Viking

Yeah. Gabriel Jesus scored 8 league goals last season. Haaland scored 36 - you'd think, based on the "Harry Kane turns us into City" logic, that they're scoring five goals a game now, as opposed to... performing roughly the same in attack as last season.

 

[Abraxas]

Great. I can’t wait for another season of pissing around in fourth and fifth while we wait.

Why will that happen? I'm not sure why you put so much importance on Harry Kane and believe he is the antidote to everything that could go wrong or the reason everything might go right. He's just one footballer, he's spent all his career winning feck all to date, if that happens for another year the world will carry on spinning.

 

[lex talionis]

People really need to stop looking at football as just "Plug in x player that scored y amount of goals and add those goals to our current tally! Title challenge!"

City need 6 goals from these final two games to equal last years total after adding the Viking

Sure, but City were PL champions last year as it was and you wouldn't expect them to score 40 more goals in the PL after the great season they had last year. And with the Viking, they're on the doorstep of the trophy that has eluded them forever.

United, on the other hand, have not had a great season this year. We're all delighted that we're almost there on top four and so on, but our attack has a ton of room for improvement. Adding a proper striker is a reasonable response to the undisputed fact that we lack a proper striker. Adding Kane may or may not give 20+ goals, but assuming he does give us 20+ goals we suddenly are a side that instead of drawing 1-1 to Palace or losing to 1-0 to West Ham, we're picking up 3 points from those fixtures.

What would still be unresolved if all we did was pick up Kane is avoiding the 7-0 pasting that we took from Liverpool or 4-0 from Brentford.

 

[sullydnl]

People really need to stop looking at football as just "Plug in x player that scored y amount of goals and add those goals to our current tally! Title challenge!"

City need 6 goals from these final two games to equal last years total after adding the Viking

People also tend to rather optimistically imagine these added goals occuring in the games where they'd have most impact on results when doing their goals-maths and points-maths.

When in reality they would by definition be more likely to occur in easier games in which they reduntantly turn wins into more comfortable wins. In other words goals can translate into points very inefficiently.

For example City's +10 goals scored and +22 goal difference over Arsenal has earned them just an extra 7 points. Meanwhile Arsenal's +22 goals scored and +27 goal difference on last season has translated to an extra 12 points.

 

[DevilRed]

We desperately need a striker. We've been dire upfront in the last few months. Worse in the league since GW26. I mean, thats relegation form in terms of goals scored. Even Soton have managed more.

Normally I'd say no to signing a 30 year old striker, but at this stage Kane would be a great signing for us. Provided we also sign younger strikers as an understudy (and offload Martial).

Spoiler

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

Sure, but City were PL champions last year as it was and you wouldn't expect them to score 40 more goals in the PL after the great season they had last year. And with the Viking, they're on the doorstep of the trophy that has eluded them forever.

United, on the other hand, have not had a great season this year. We're all delighted that we're almost there on top four and so on, but our attack has a ton of room for improvement. Adding a proper striker is a reasonable response to the undisputed fact that we lack a proper striker. Adding Kane may or may not give 20+ goals, but assuming he does give us 20+ goals we suddenly are a side that instead of drawing 1-1 to Palace or losing to 1-0 to West Ham, we're picking up 3 points from those fixtures.

What would still be unresolved if all we did was pick up Kane is avoiding the 7-0 pasting that we took from Liverpool or 4-0 from Brentford.

Oh this isn't me saying Kane doesn't improve us. Just a general statement that you're an idiot if you think in terms of "Kane adding his 28 goals to this team and we are challenging for the title".

In reality we probably score 12-13 more than we have currently I'd say? Given if we subtract a few from Rashford and the other strikers (say 7 total) while adding in Kane himself (Assuming he scores 20 in the league). Gives us 65 for the league which still isn't great but is at least okay

 

[Doracle]

People also tend to rather optimistically imagine these added goals occuring in the games where they'd have most impact on results when doing their goals-maths and points-maths.

When in reality they would by definition be more likely to occur in easier games in which they reduntantly turn wins into more comfortable wins. In other words goals can translate into points very inefficiently.

For example City's +10 goals scored and +22 goal difference over Arsenal has earned them just an extra 7 points. Meanwhile Arsenal's +22 goals scored and +27 goal difference on last season has translated to an extra 12 points.

And then those grim 1-0 wins, where you can’t afford to take off players, turn into easy 3-0 wins and you can take your best players off with 15 minutes left. Those best players then are a little less tired later in the season and suddenly 1-0 defeats are comfortable 2-0 wins.

There’s just no way of knowing how many points a world class CF will gain us. All we can say is that there’s a reason why the best teams in world football pay the big bucks to have the best CFs playing for them, rather than Wout Weghorst. It’s because having a world class CF is worth a lot of goals, and hence a lot of points.

 

[Kag]

Why will that happen? I'm not sure why you put so much importance on Harry Kane and believe he is the antidote to everything that could go wrong or the reason everything might go right. He's just one footballer, he's spent all his career winning feck all to date, if that happens for another year the world will carry on spinning.

Because there is no other striker on the market who will walk into the club and score goals at the rate the best forwards in the world do (Kane being one of them).

You won’t see me denying that fact that we need a goalkeeper and a midfielder or two, but all of that means jack shit until we have more footballers at the club who can score goals.

 

[Kag]

He would indeed.

But accepting we're not winning the league next season regardless, the question is whether he'll be get us closer to a title in the 24/25, 25/26, and 26/27 seasons than other strikers we might sign now will at that point. Because if we're signing a CF to win us things, it's across those seasons they'll be doing it.

We want a world class CF next season. But we need a world class CF in two, three and four seasons' time.

And having to project (and depend on) these various options' level across that period makes it a trickier question. Some posters seem to want us to avoid having to make that projection at all by banking on the certainty of Kane's short term quality, but football doesn't work that way. You need to plan ahead.

If you're spending 80-100m on Kane now, you need to be very confident he'll still be more of a title winning CF in two or three seasons time than any of the younger CFs you could buy instead will be. If he will be, great, sign Kane. If he won't be, you have to ask why you're prioritising season where you're less likely to win things. Either way, what he'll do next season doesn't answer that question either way.

Football doesn’t work like this. Ten Hag won’t be of this view either. Not while his best players are in or exiting their prime.

Let’s not buy a world class striker because we’re going to decide to be good in three years. Cracking plan.

 

[ManRed]

A few good signings (CM, CB, GK) + Kane and we should be in the title race next season. However, Kane is a short term fix like RVP and we need to look at ST for the long term.

 

[Valencia Shin Crosses]

A few good signings (CM, CB, GK) + Kane and we should be in the title race next season. However, Kane is a short term fix like RVP and we need to look at ST for the long term.

We won't be in the title race next season regardless, but Kane and a few others would put us firmly in the top 4 and give us a good shot in the cups/UCL of making noise

 

[Red in STL]

Football doesn’t work like this. Ten Hag won’t be of this view either. Not while his best players are in or exiting their prime.

Let’s not buy a world class striker because we’re going to decide to be good in three years. Cracking plan.

It would be if he doesn't want his job anymore!

 

[MyBloodIsRed]

Anyone think Charlie McNeil could be Kane's understudy? That would be a great scenario to have a striker we could have learn from from a world class scorer.

He already wears 9 for England so might as well make it consistent for his club too

 

[Doracle]

We desperately need a striker. We've been dire upfront in the last few months. Worse in the league since GW26. I mean, thats relegation form in terms of goals scored. Even Soton have managed more.

Normally I'd say no to signing a 30 year old striker, but at this stage Kane would be a great signing for us. Provided we also sign younger strikers as an understudy (and offload Martial).

Spoiler

Was there a top section of this table out of interest?

 

[DevilRed]

Was there a top section of this table out of interest?

Sorry I'm not sure. I got it off reddit.

Although I'd imagine it would just be a combination of city, arsenal, newcastle, the dippers and brighton?

 

[DevilRed]

Anyone think Charlie McNeil could be Kane's understudy? That would be a great scenario to have a striker we could have learn from from a world class scorer.

He already wears 9 for England so might as well make it consistent for his club too

Yes I was hoping we'd give Charlie a chance. Amazing record in the youth leagues.

But it seems he has had a really poor spell with Newport. Hasn't performed to his best ability.

 

[Abraxas]

Because there is no other striker on the market who will walk into the club and score goals at the rate the best forwards in the world do (Kane being one of them).

You won’t see me denying that fact that we need a goalkeeper and a midfielder or two, but all of that means jack shit until we have more footballers at the club who can score goals.

There's no way we finish better than 4th or 5th unless we have Harry Kane? No matter what we do to the squad, how we strengthen other areas, how we buy an alternate striker - we are limited to 4th or 5th because we don't have Harry Kane. Are you really going with that concept?

Arsenal improved out of sight without the addition of a striker that has a noted goalscoring record...

It's about the team and the manager, it's not about one player on the market. We can't guarantee Harry Kane even if we go for him. It's not totally in our control so what are we going to do then in your mind, simply accept that we are finishing 4th or 5th?

I think you' may be a tad attached to this and overegging the pudding somewhat.

 

[Doracle]

Sorry I'm not sure. I got it off reddit.

Although I'd imagine it would just be a combination of city, arsenal, newcastle, the dippers and brighton?

Yes, I was more wondering what “good”numbers were for the stats shown, accepting ours obviously aren’t!

 

[sullydnl]

Football doesn’t work like this. Ten Hag won’t be of this view either. Not while his best players are in or exiting their prime.

Let’s not buy a world class striker because we’re going to decide to be good in three years. Cracking plan.

Except that isn't remotely what I said, so please don't deliberately be stupid.

If you can buy a world class striker then buy a world class striker, provided you're confident they will continue being world class for several seasons. If you don't have confidence in that, but you can identify a younger striker who you're confident will become world class relatively soon, then it goes without saying that that's who you spend 80-100m on. You don't prioritise the season in front of you at the cost of everything else.

The fact that our best players are already in or exiting their prime is all the more reason to plan ahead, not less. That's literally how football works, clubs plan multiple transfer windows in advance and project when players are likely to drop off.

 

[sullydnl]

There's no way we finish better than 4th or 5th unless we have Harry Kane? No matter what we do to the squad, how we strengthen other areas, how we buy an alternate striker - we are limited to 4th or 5th because we don't have Harry Kane. Are you really going with that concept?

Arsenal improved out of sight without the addition of a striker that has a noted goalscoring record...

It's about the team and the manager, it's not about one player on the market. We can't guarantee Harry Kane even if we go for him. It's not totally in our control so what are we going to do then in your mind, simply accept that we are finishing 4th or 5th?

I think you' may be a tad attached to this and overegging the pudding somewhat.

Indeed.

Literally only one of this season's top four teams had a striker scoring at a world class level this season. The idea that anyone we sign needs to immediately hit that level next season is insane.

 

[cyberman]

There's no way we finish better than 4th or 5th unless we have Harry Kane? No matter what we do to the squad, how we strengthen other areas, how we buy an alternate striker - we are limited to 4th or 5th because we don't have Harry Kane. Are you really going with that concept?

Arsenal improved out of sight without the addition of a striker that has a noted goalscoring record...

It's about the team and the manager, it's not about one player on the market. We can't guarantee Harry Kane even if we go for him. It's not totally in our control so what are we going to do then in your mind, simply accept that we are finishing 4th or 5th?

I think you' may be a tad attached to this and overegging the pudding somewhat.

That’s an odd statement to make about a team who signed a striker who has 110 odd goal involvements in 186 league games

 

[lex talionis]

Oh this isn't me saying Kane doesn't improve us. Just a general statement that you're an idiot if you think in terms of "Kane adding his 28 goals to this team and we are challenging for the title".

In reality we probably score 12-13 more than we have currently I'd say? Given if we subtract a few from Rashford and the other strikers (say 7 total) while adding in Kane himself (Assuming he scores 20 in the league). Gives us 65 for the league which still isn't great but is at least okay

It may actually not be idiotic to believe that if we added 28 goals to our tally that we would be challenging for the title.

We're 20 points behind City with 2 matches left to play. We cannot assume that we'd be on 89 points on this very day (May 25) had we had Kane and his 28 PL goals, but we can assume that we would have been challenging in late January, before Arsenal and City left us in the rear view mirror in March, had we had a player of Kane's ability. There was even serious talk here in January of being in the title hunt. Okay, that talk turned out to be daft, but it turned out to be daft primarily because we fukking can't score goals. In late January, we scored 2 goals against Arsenal but we conceded a late goal and lost 3-2, but if we had had Kane in our quiver we might (a lot of hypotheticals, I grant you) have had the 3-2 lead going into the 80th minute and shut the door down on Arsenal and walked away with the three points. Maybe, maybe not. Soon thereafter we drew to Leeds and with those two results our PL trophy was smashed to bits. But then a month later Liverpool destroyed us 7-0 and there's nothing Kane could have down about that. However, if you remember how that match against Liverpool actually went we played them well in the first half until the end of the first half, then we got dismembered in the second half when balls might as well have been bouncing off their cocks for goals. But had we kept it to 1-1 going into HT maybe we wouldn't have collapsed in the second half. Maybe had we had Kane from the beginning of the season we would have built up leads that would have allowed us more substitutions in the second half.

No one will argue that adding Kane or Osimhen guarantees us a title, but adding a top striker definitely elevates us from scraping a top four spot to "challenging" for the title. But to go from challenging for the title to being a favorite (no guarantees, just a favorite) to win the title we need an 8 and a backup 6...and for some a new keeper.

We are 40 goals scored behind City, who are 20 points ahead of us in the league table. We go nowhere in the league table unless we substantially add to our pathetic goal production. Put another way, the precondition for challenging for the league title is adding a minimum of 30 goals. That probably won't be enough to deliver a league title, but at this point all most of our asking for is challenging for a league title as late as early May. We were just about there in January, when Arsenal were still riding high but City were dropping stupid points, before City pulled away and Arsenal collapsed. But it's fair to say that Arsenal "challenged" for the title this season...we're only 12 points off Arsenal. Adding Kane and his 28 goals -- let's make it only 15 goals -- definitely would have put us in the conversation for second place in the league, aka "challenging" for the league title.

 

[Abraxas]

That’s an odd statement to make about a team who signed a striker who has 110 odd goal involvements in 186 league games

Is it? Gabriel Jesus doesn't score at the level of world class goalscorers. I'm not dismissing his technique, hold up play, creativity and everything else he brings - but he's not comparable to Harry Kane for goalscoring. He's more of a 1 in 3 fella that brings plenty of other stuff to his teams than that type of player.

Yet he still helped kick Arsenal on a level when he was available, so I think it supports that there are many ways to improve a team.

 

[MyOnlySolskjaer]

We should be going for Evan Ferguson instead.

 

[Rolaholic]

We should be going for Evan Ferguson instead.

Over Harry Kane??

Ideally we'd try to get both over the next year or so, one for the right now and one for the long term.

 

[Eddy_JukeZ]

We should be going for Evan Ferguson instead.

It'd be a lot of pressure on him, but he's definitely one to keep an eye on.

If it was possible to sign him and then loan him out, I'd do that, but I doubt it's feasible.