Imagine our position and Chelsea’s was reversed. You’d get laughed at on here for suggesting we were more likely to sign him, yet some are convincing himself that Chelsea are favourites 
Harry Kane | Bayern Munich player
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Only thing that gives them an edge is the amount they would be willing to spend (hopefully).Imagine our position and Chelsea’s was reversed. You’d get laughed at on here for suggesting we were more likely to sign him, yet some are convincing himself that Chelsea are favourites
The idea of paying north of 70m for a striker who will be 30 next season and seems to have lost a yard seems pretty risky to me.
I think secretly what Levy will be hoping for is that he can sell Harry Kane for a good fee, and then if he has to do that to an English club, which I really think would be a last resort, he'll hope Harry's form falls off a cliff so he can package it as making the deal at the right time.
70 million to Man Utd would surprise me. I don't see that happening. That looks more like a deal for Bayern or some other foreign club, I don't think Levy would see that as compensation for him potentially smashing in goals v Spurs for the next number of years.
70 million to Man Utd would surprise me. I don't see that happening. That looks more like a deal for Bayern or some other foreign club, I don't think Levy would see that as compensation for him potentially smashing in goals v Spurs for the next number of years.
Kane was injured before the champion’s league final and came back half fit. If you take that small sample of games you have to look more carefully.
Very very unlikely.
Chelsea are in just as much a mess as Spurs are.
Also I can't see Kane joining Chelsea or Arsenal out of respect for Spurs.
It would be Levys worst nightmare to see him join Chelsea too, so it might make him more inclined to cut a deal here.
He has one year left on his spurs contract.
Basically what ever we may pay is a transfer fee for one years service as he will be available on a free in 12 months. One season, that goes by so quickly.
Then his age etc.
Not a big fee transfer IMO.
I hope we spend the big fee elsewhere
Basically what ever we may pay is a transfer fee for one years service as he will be available on a free in 12 months. One season, that goes by so quickly.
Then his age etc.
Not a big fee transfer IMO.
I hope we spend the big fee elsewhere
It’s £70m compensation for one year of this, as he loses him for free the year after anyway. The question is what is Harry Kane worth to Spurs for one season and the pure economics answer is a lot less than £70m. The reason that they will get that fee is because he is worth more for another club over the next 5-6 years and clubs won’t want to wait a year to risk the mad scramble for him on a free.
Kane is worth more to Spurs for an extra season than £70m that won't cover the cost of a replacement. Even if there was a viable replacement at £70m, he wouldn't be going to Spurs. Offsetting what Kane gives them, especially in these dire times, is nigh on impossible unless they stumble into a miracle player who goes stellar.
Levy staving off bids and then claiming the higher ground is a lot more feasible than him being reasonable, especially with us.
That's the ideal, I'd just put money on him going in the other direction and doubling down, personally.
When has he ever yielded and let a good player go for a "fair" price, let alone do so with his crown jewel? Couple it with his ego and well-known shithousery in previous transfer windows and it just doesn't bode well he'll suddenly change his tune, even in the face of unprecedented criticism.
If he is open to what you say, I think the tone of the thread would change quite a bit.
It’s all going to come down to Harry kane this. If he says to levy, let me go, I want to leave, take the money or I will leave for free next year, under no circumstance am I going to sign a contract.. levy will have to either lose him for nothing and keep a unsettled Harry kane or sell him. I think it would result in the latter. Levy is going to use emotional tactics such as the statue to keep him there, so ultimately it boils down to kanes ambition. I’m not sure he has the balls to do it.
They got an equity injection last season to afford transfers and now the haven’t got CL money next year. Levy cannot let Kane go on a free especially when he wouldn’t have the power to decide where he goes next year. He could go to Newcastle and freeze Spurs out of the top 4 for the next 2/3 season
But is your assumption that the supposed £70m is assured to do them better next season than keeping a Kane who gives them their best possible chance of achieving top 4?
£70m doesn’t get you an elite striker these days, and normally wouldn’t get you a player of Kane’s quality in any other season. I don’t think it gets you Kane from them this season, either.
I wouldn't say it's smug. More vacant / lights on but no-one at home.
But then he can't help it, so probably a bit harsh.
For all his goals, it does scream risk.
It feels a little bit like a Woodward buy. Maximum boasting and exposure - England captain etc.
But with the risk of an immediate drop at any stage.
But we need to be buying these players at 23-25, not at 30+
If he’s keen on a statue he should just go to City, they’ll put up a statue of anyone who’s been there more than five minutes.
If we’re in for Kane I’d like to optimistically think we’re favourites. People often overlook how much Spurs/Chelsea dislike each other, plus their erstwhile London rivals aren’t in Europe next season. Going to Bayern would mean waving goodbye to the PL all time top scorer record. He’s not going to Arsenal, and City don’t need him. That pretty much leaves just Newcastle with an outside chance, but they’re not consistently in the mix for trophies yet and for a player who’s nearly 30 he might not have the patience to wait until they are.
let's be honest, Spurs aren't getting top 4 next season even with Kane. with the emergence of Newcastle their days of top 4 are pretty much done, short of some crazy one off season. i should imagine Levy the pragmatist must know this too.
so if we assume top 4 is beyond them, given the glaring weaknesses across their team, then an extra £70m will help address those gaps more than one extra season of Kane.
There may be an opportunity to sell abroad which avoids him banging in goals versus Spurs or directly making us a much better team. Even if it is for less than 70 million I could see Levy convincing himself that this is a better thing than taking substantially more from ourselves. I don't think he views this one like selling us Michael Carrick or Berbatov. There is so much history with Kane as a product and face of the club and I think it's going to be really hard for him to sell to us. Unless it's bonkers money to compensate for it and I'm not sure 70 million will represent that in his mind.
There is of course Kane's mindset in all this which sometimes gets forgotten. He has a lot of power in this situation that he can leverage. He can make things very difficult for Levy to get what he would see as the best outcome if he digs his feet in regarding where he will go.
Personally I hope Levy does fight tooth and nail to make life difficult because I'm not a great lover of Harry Kane and I'm even less of a believer in him as the best option for us.
I don't know if he's on the market, but if he doesn't sign a new contract, it seems likely that Spurs will sell rather than lose him for nothing, and why would he sign a new contract? This is his last chance to make a move and actually properly challenge for trophies. His price will reflect his age, his contract position and likely his will to stay in the PL, if the talk about him being focused on the PL goal scoring record is correct.
He has consistently been Spurs best player for the past decade. He doesn't just score goals - he's improved the players around him (Son, in particular). If you can't see the impact his performances and returns have had in what what would be a largely an average side then I'm not sure what to say.
In terms of England he has consistently scored and created goals. Wayne Rooney never performed at the level Kane has at a tournament. I assume you'd question his quality as well?
You seem to define success as a one off performance in a big game. Has he performed in finals? perhaps not, but so what? You win titles over 30 plus games and he's as close to a 20 plus goals guarantee as you'll find. He's done it year in and year out and has, at least 3 good years left in him.
Also, everyone criticising seems to dodge the question, so I'll ask you directly - who is the better option? Who's the player who we can realistically bring in who offers what Kane offers, short term, in terms of likely return, and who isn't a £100 plus million risk? Looking at the criticisms you raise, who's the player you seem to think will turn up in the Champions League final and win us the game on his own? Because I don't know who that is, but lets hear your thoughts. Maybe you'll change my mind.
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It can happen but that's generally when a player moves from a mid/lower table club to a bigger one - Maguire (who was always a dumb signing) and Schneiderlin for example. That doesn't really apply to Kane. The risk with Kane is that he has a sharp decline like Sanchez and Matic. I don't think that's likely, as has been discussed extensively here, he's never been an all-action explosive kind of player.
If he makes it clear he won't sign a new contract they'll sell. Kane will have a say in where he goes and won't just blindly move to the highest bidder. There's talk he doesn't want to go abroad because he wants the PL goal scoring record. I suspect Spurs wouldn't sell to Chelsea, who seem to be the only other likely bidder - especially if Poch joins. United have made strides this year and I suspect are a more attractive option than they were. I obviously know no more than anyone else, but there's a reasonable chance that this could happen.
People keep talking about "overpaying" when Chelsea are paying £100 million for the likes of Mudryk, and Osimhen (who looks a decent player) is touted at £120 million plus now PSG are interested.
Clearly, if Spurs demand a huge fee, any buyer will leverage the fact that he's out of contract next year. He can leverage that too, by having a say in where he goes, his threat being to run down his contract and walk. If he goes, there's a good chance a buyer won't have to pay more than he's worth.
And I'm not pinning everything on a player having payed well in the league. The alternatives to Kane, when all comes to all, are younger, but lack PL (and likely CL and international) experience and are likely to cost more than him. He's objectively less risky because he's a known quantity with a proven track record, in my opinion.
My view entirely.
The critics seem not to want to put forward an alternative who's seemingly less of a risk. A potential buyer holds significant leverage here, and Kane will have a big say in where he goes. Spurs will not let him walk for free.
kane will score against us tomorrow, ye know that?
I just think keeping him this summer hoping he gets top 4 next year but losing 70/80m in the process is a push. They can sell him now without CL, invest it into a replacement and (in Levy’s eyes) hopefully get top 4 next season so they come out with a big profit.
I think if they had CL next year they’d keep him funnily enough.
I’d also argue Kane doesn’t provide much for CL qualification. When they don’t qualify this season it’ll have been 1 top 4 finish in four years. It’s a huge gamble to keep him for an extra season on top of that
The nightmare scenario for Spurs is that Kane doesn’t sign a new deal and that he ”out of loyalty “ says he will see out the remaining 12 months of his contract.
Kane will need to go on a strike if he has to join us. Levy won't agree for him to join United. Saga incoming!
Say Kane does run down his contract. Does that put any potential destinations on the table for him next year that wouldn't be available this year?
Presumably we would no longer be an option at that point, as there's zero chance we go another year without a first choice striker. So if it happened, where would his most likely destination be?
Presumably we would no longer be an option at that point, as there's zero chance we go another year without a first choice striker. So if it happened, where would his most likely destination be?
So we should never have signed Casemiro, Varane or Eriksen?
I’m not going to go through this point by point, but I will only say here that had we brought in Kane in January that’s it’s extremely unlikely that we’d be at the top of the table today.
When I have the chance later today I’ll go through our fixture list and do the math under the assumption that we hadn’t dropped a single point since January 1 and make the corresponding adjustment to Arsenal’s points total under the assumption we had beaten them rather than they beating us. I’ll come back here and report my finding.
Could Harry Kane not buy out the last year of his contract if Levy plays hardball?
Given he wants to stay in England to break the record f there are very few options if any. Arsenal and Chelsea are unlikely as he may not want to break his relationship with Tottenham.
That leaves Liverpool, us and City and at this point its hard to predict the striker situation of these clubs next season. Maybe Haaland leaves to replace Benzema in Madrid and Kane can go to City? Or maybe United still lacks a goalscorer as the one they got flopped? Who knows
Our attack needs a sure thing though, all our forwards are young. People frowning at his age forget all our forwards are young and we suffer for it. We can afford to buy a 29/30 year old forward to add maturity to that area of the pitch
Its in midfield you want to be bringing the age down, and in defense if we're getting a Maguire replacement.
Normally I would agree, but this very much feels like the type of signing we should make if it's the last piece of the jigsaw. Like when we signed RvP.
There's still too much missing in the team for this signing to push us into title contention, at least that's what I think. That might change depending on who else we sign, but if Kane turns out to be the only first teamer we bring in then I'm not sure it's worth it.
In a few years the spine of the team will all be over 30 and we'll need to replace them all at the same time.
Casemiro was a special case and a very risky buy, we went for him as we desperately needed experience and quality in the midfield, but it was and still is a big gamble to pay so much for a player arguably past his peak. It worked out because he seamlessly adapted to the team, but there were a lot of question marks over this transfer - after all we went for him very late in the summer, having missed out on our main target. The fact he's been a success so far by no means suggests we shouldn't be worried about overpaying for older players, for every Casemiro there's more than one Alexis Sanchez.
Varane was 28 when we bought him and is a central-back - hard to argue about strikers longevity vs central backs and GKs - so his case is completely unrelated here.
Eriksen was signed on a free and was never good enough to be a starter for us nor expected to be one of our main players. I'm OK with signing 30+ players if they're out of contract and happy to provide depth and experience from the bench, but it's definitely not the case with Kane.
So yeah, by default (obviously there are special cases) I don't think we should sign 30+ players, especially in attacking roles, for huge fees and on huge wages. It can be good if you're so close to challenging for the titles, you just need one player to get your team to the next level and you sacrifice future for the present - as it was the case with RVP. We are at a completely different stage though, Erik is not building the team for immediate success in 2023/24 or bust.
Between the next two summer windows we could sign.
A number 9
Central midfielder
Casemiro understudy
Right back
Goalie
Varane understudy.
If the two midfield signings are under 25, and Varane understudy is also young that create a scenario were this players are replaced by younger players in time.
Even if we don't win the league next season it should be the aim and Kane is the sort of player to help you contend and also push for the latter rounds of the UCL.
Most big clubs in Europe would become an option then, even ones that have strikers. Nobody is going to turn down Kane for free.
Depends on what he wants. If he is desperate for a trophy, he could even join City for free and they can have both him and Haaland.
We really should stay away. No resale value, might give us couple of good seasons before we are looking towards the future, big salary so wont be easy selling him at that age. For free or 20-30mn its not a bad signing but with £100m price being thrown around, we should definitely stay away.
Such a signing has been a trend in recent years (cavani, zlatan, ronaldo, sanchez) and its not surprising in a year or two we keep coming back to this issue. Martial needs to go and we need 2 strikers to build towards the future.
Such a signing has been a trend in recent years (cavani, zlatan, ronaldo, sanchez) and its not surprising in a year or two we keep coming back to this issue. Martial needs to go and we need 2 strikers to build towards the future.
“Smug” “vacant” ? ….in fact he’s got a brilliant footballing brain, doesn’t miss a trick. I’d say one of the smartest in the prem.
I didn't say we would be at the top. I said we likely have 8 extra point which put us 3 point behind City right now. 59+8 = 67. City is on 70 now. Both team had played same amount of games. 8 point behind Arsenal with 2 games in hand.
That 8 points came from: 2 extra from Leeds at home, 2 extra Crystal Palace, 2 extra from Southampton home, 1 point from Newcastle, 1 from either Liverpool or Arsenal away is good.
The point being that you seems to think that Kane only getting some goals in Liverpool game and still conceding 7 with Kane in place of Weghorst, as if Kane is just Weghorst that can score goal. Kane would allow Rashford to play on the left that game, Bruno in no 10. ETH was slow to react because when Weghorst left the pitch we're already 3 goal down, and the team collapsed. In that game we had chances to score at 0-0 despite playing that badly. If we scored first it would change the dynamic of that game.
Similar thing can happen with Newcastle, and Leeds where Weghorst needed to leave to pitch after we're goals down. We're talking about Weghorst being a hinderance to the team and we play like a player down losing key battle on the pitch.
United should never be a team that buys players with any emphasis on resale value
I think a lot of this is cope though. The last time Spurs sold a significant player was Bale for a world record fee, and in the meantime Levy has basically told everyone to feck off who have ever come sniffing around the club for their players since. He's shown to be a stubborn prick, and I don't think Kane throwing a fit would really change that (personally don't think Kane will do so either at this point if he hasn't in the past).
Let’s see what he does tomorrow night. If I were to bet, I would suggest ambling around and barely getting a kick.
Actually , given Spurs’ current circumstances, he might actually be lifted and cover ground and even stretch us a bit. Ordinarily, no, I’d expect him to be well handled.
Actually , given Spurs’ current circumstances, he might actually be lifted and cover ground and even stretch us a bit. Ordinarily, no, I’d expect him to be well handled.