It was the news every Tottenham Hotspur supporter wanted to hear.
“Half an hour ago we received the report about the scan and it’s much, much better than we expected,” Mauricio Pochettino said in late September, addressing the ankle injury sustained by Harry Kane in his side’s defeat of Sunderland a few days earlier.
“I’m not a doctor [and] it’s difficult to say how long [he is out for], but it’s true that it’s much, much, much better than what we expected.”
Kane, 23, has since returned to training, and while Saturday’s clash with champions Leicester City will come too soon for the England international, he could be fit enough to play a part against north London rivals Arsenal next weekend.
Pochettino’s declaration that Kane would not be spending as much time on the sidelines as first feared was naturally interpreted as a welcome boost, but in hindsight it may actually have been a much more significant moment in Tottenham’s season.
Pochettino’s side have now failed to score from open play in each of their last three outings, with Vincent Janssen’s penalty in Tuesday’s League Cup defeat to Liverpool their only goal in the club’s last 271 minutes of action.
Blanks were drawn against both Bayer Leverkusen in the Uefa Champions League and Bournemouth in the Premier League, with back-to-back goalless draws seen as missed opportunities despite the fact Tottenham were playing away from home on both occasions.
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A total of 12 goals have been scored in the eight games Kane has missed, although the figure drops to seven in seven if last month’s cup tie with third-tier Gillingham is discounted.
Kane’s own return of three in his last 15 appearances for club and country suggests that Tottenham might have struggled even if he had been fit, but such an interpretation fails to recognise his importance to his side’s attacking structure as a whole.
Kane has always been more than just a goalscorer. He regularly drops deep when his team have the ball, encouraging the likes of Dele Alli to break beyond him with runs from midfield, while he is also adept at bringing teammates into play.
Son Heung-min and Janssen have been used as the farthest man forward in Kane’s absence, with the results mixed on both counts. Son was terrific in the 2-0 victory over Manchester City, for example, but much quieter against Bournemouth. Summer signing Janssen has shown flashes of his ability without yet finding an end product.
Neither is as good a fit as Kane, who, as well as being a fine finisher in and around the penalty area, acts as Tottenham’s focal point and helps to improve the players around him.
‘Expected Goals’ is a tool which measures the quality of chances a team create based on factors such as the location of the shot and the type of effort.
One particular model calculated that Pochettino’s team managed 0.7 expected goals against Bournemouth and 0.5 against Bayer Leverkusen. Such numbers are low for a side of Tottenham’s standing and show that fashioning opportunities was as big a problem as putting them away in their last two games.
It is impossible to know whether Kane’s presence would have enhanced their efforts in that regard, but it can certainly be said with confidence that Tottenham’s attack has functioned best in the past couple of years when the club’s academy product has been used as their spearhead.
“Not only Harry, the pressure [to score] is for the whole team,” Pochettino said after the draw with Bournemouth. “It’s true that we show a lot of positive things but the area we need to improve is to be more clinical and try to score more.”
Kane’s return, while earlier than initially anticipated, still cannot come soon enough.
Milner superb as a left-back for Liverpool
When Alberto Moreno was given the runaround in Liverpool’s season curtain-raiser against Arsenal in August, Jurgen Klopp was urged to buy a new left-back before the transfer window closed two weeks later.
The German had other ideas. Instead of acquiring a natural left-sided defender from outside the club, Klopp decided to redeploy a player who was already part of his first-team squad. It was a risky move.
The man he decided to move into the backline was James Milner, a central midfielder who had also been used as a wide attacker and even a central striker throughout his Premier League career with Leeds United, Newcastle United, Aston Villa and Manchester City.
Milner, 30, has always been a reliable professional, willing to sacrifice himself for the collective good, but there were still substantial doubts about whether a right-footed midfielder with no experience of the position could succeed at left-back.
Liverpool supporters need not have worried. The former England international has been superb since dropping into the back four, performing with the kind of maturity that would be expected of someone who has played in that position for years.
Milner has been solid defensively, his tenacity, athleticism and positional intelligence making him a difficult opponent to get past. He has also been productive going forward, with only Roberto Firmino and Philippe Coutinho creating more chances for their Liverpool teammates this season.
A 100 per cent conversion rate from the penalty spot is not to be sniffed at, either.
“He seems to make it look easy,” right-back Nathaniel Clyne said of the Milner earlier this month. “I’ve trained my whole career to be a full-back and he comes in and makes it look easy!”
When Liverpool do battle with Clyne’s former club Crystal Palace on Saturday, Milner is likely to once again show why Klopp was right to keep his chequebook in his pocket.
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