When Harry Kane dropped into midfield, Simon Kjaer came with him. When Kane jumped for a ball, Kjaer jumped with him. When Kane sprinted in behind, Kjaer ran with him. The AC Milan defender may be 33, well beyond his physical prime, but in Tuesday’s Champions League meeting with Tottenham Hotspur he had a sole purpose and he stuck to it relentlessly: stop Kane.
Tottenham’s biggest problem is Harry Kane’s supporting cast has gone missing – DeFodi Images/Getty Images
Few defenders in recent seasons have been so successful in a one-to-one contest with the England captain, even if Kjaer was occasionally fortunate with some refereeing decisions. And from Milan’s perspective, the strategy worked perfectly. Kjaer kept Kane out of the game and, in doing so, effectively shut down the entire Spurs attack.
It was a measure of the situation at Spurs that, without Kane being able to influence the match, Antonio Conte’s side had no other ideas at the San Siro. No creativity, no chances, no real prospect of scoring a goal. They played well otherwise, but when the ball reached the final third there was a complete lack of invention and incisiveness.
On Tuesday night, Kane was flanked by Son Heung-min and Dejan Kulusevski from the start. By the end he had Richarlison and Arnaut Danjuma for company. Those are four experienced, quality forward players — but none of them even came close to offering genuine offensive threat.
The most worrying part for Spurs is that this is not even unusual. Kane’s support act has simply not provided the goals and assists that are expected — and needed — at a team of Tottenham’s ambition. The performance in Milan represented a continuation of the theme, and underlined how reliant Conte’s side have become on Kane to make the attack function.
This season, Kane has been directly involved in 22 goals for his club in all competitions (19 goals, three assists). That is twice as many as Son, who has eight goals and three assists, and more than twice as many as all of his other attacking team-mates.
Harry Kane battles with AC Milan’s Simon Kjaer – Tottenham’s biggest problem is Harry Kane’s supporting cast has gone missing – Valerio Pennicino/Getty Images© Provided by The Telegraph
Richarlison and Kulusevski, especially, have not provided the number of decisive moments that would have been expected by Spurs supporters, and indeed by Conte, at the start of the season. Both of those wide forwards have played 20 games this season, in all competitions, and both of them have scored only two goals.
There are mitigating factors in both cases: Richarlison and Kulusevski have had injury issues this season, and have been unable to feature as consistently as they would have hoped. But their returns are still unquestionably disappointing, and there is little to suggest those figures are going to change any time soon.
At which point it is worth remembering that Richarlison cost £60 million when he joined from Everton this summer, and that Kulusevski is set to cost around £30million when his loan deal from Juventus becomes a permanent move. That is almost £100 million worth of attacking talent, delivering a combined total of four goals in a combined total of 40 appearances.
Son, it should be noted, has not been much better. Against Milan he was ineffective again, as has frequently been the case this season, and his drop-off from the previous campaign has left Kane increasingly isolated as the team’s main threat. To put it bluntly, Milan had no reason to be worried by Son on Tuesday night. With Kane shackled, Son and Kulusevski were hardly in the game.
Does it matter who scores the goals? Perhaps not, if Kane is able to routinely fire Spurs towards victories. But a common theme among the best sides in Europe is that the attacking threat is varied and multi-dimensional, and the loss in Milan only served to emphasise how the Spurs frontline is neither.
In the Premier League this season, Arsenal’s wide forwards have contributed 28 goals and assists between them. At Manchester City, that figure stands at 24. For Spurs, it is a comparatively meagre 16. It is not hard to see where they are falling short compared to the league’s leading sides.
These are not straightforward times at Spurs, who have lost seven of their last 14 matches in all competitions and are now in the midst of a sudden injury crisis. The team needs goals and Kane, evidently, needs help. Until the other attackers start to share the burden, Spurs will struggle to find the consistency they crave in the second half of the season.
Source: msn
