Lethal Harry Kane Reminds Manchester City And Pep Guardiola What They’re Missing

Harry Kane’s much-anticipated move from boyhood club Tottenham Hotspur to Premier League champion Manchester City was supposed to be the big transfer of last summer.

But, with City the only realistic suitor and unwilling to meet Spurs’ valuation, Kane stayed.

In Saturday’s match between City and Spurs, Kane showed the home side’s manager Pep Guardiola exactly what he could have bought.

Kane was sensational in a 3-2 win for Spurs as thrilling as it was unlikely. Man-of-the-match Kane released Son Heung-min with an incisive pass for the first goal, the South Korean squaring for Dejan Kulusevski to finish.   

Kane added Spurs’ second with a clever finish from Son’s cross before having another effort well saved and then another disallowed for offside.

Then, after City seemed to have snatched a point with a 92^nd-minute penalty, Kane headed the winner after 95 minutes of play.

For City, it was an unexpected defeat that has blown the Premier League title race wide open. City is six points clear of Liverpool, which has a match in hand. City hosts Liverpool in April.

Guardiola’s side, as it often does, dominated possession and had plenty of chances. Hugo Lloris made several saves, City hit the post and created several promising openings.

But City needed a finisher – a focal point of the attack who would turn those opportunities into goals. The line-up had no recognized centre-forward and when City needed to find a goal Guardiola turned to Riyad Mahrez from the bench (who scored a penalty to make it 2-2).

The Brazilian striker, the hardworking Gabriel Jesus, was unavailable through injury, as was the English star City did sign last summer, Jack Grealish.   

Watching the match, it was easy to think City would have won with a striker like Kane.

Speaking before the match, Guardiola insisted he had no complaints about the club’s failure to sign Kane.

“We tried [for Kane] but it was far away [from] being done because Tottenham were clear this is not going to happen. And when they say this two, three, four times, it’s over,” he said, as reported by The Guardian.

“Now you can say: ‘Harry Kane didn’t come and everything is going well’. But at the time I didn’t know it. We lost to Spurs [in the opening match of the season] and Leicester in the Community Shield. And I don’t know what will happen in the next few weeks. The club gave me players and I’m always delighted – and it’s then what we can do together. Maybe if we had a proper striker we would play with a striker but with the players we have we have to adapt.

“I know they [the club] do the best for me. When we lose we are sad but nobody is pointing fingers saying: ‘Your fault, your fault, your fault.’ We don’t do that. That’s why I’m happy here. At other clubs when you lose it’s: ‘What’s the problem?’”

After Kane’s performance, he could well be on City’s radar again this coming summer.

The England captain, 28, has reportedly decided to wait until the end of the season before deciding his future. He is a big fan of Antonio Conte and any decision will likely be dependent on the Spurs manager committing his own future to the club.

They probably didn’t need it, but Guardiola and City have just received a painful reminder of what Harry Kane could give them.