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“Played With Virtually Ten Men” – Sky Pundit Slams Spurs Stars Selection & Again Questions His Future

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With Premier League action returning to White Hart Lane on Friday evening, Tottenham Hotspur’s performance against Manchester United gave rise to plenty of questions and one thing that was abundantly obvious was that key striker Harry Kane had a number of cobwebs to blow away following his spell out injured.

That shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone really, it was always going to take him a game or two to get properly sharp and find himself some form – and as we’ve seen from all matches so far, very few players have returned after the lull at their best – so Spurs aren’t alone in that.

Sky Sports pundit Paul Merson regularly gives his thoughts on Kane and after Friday’s showing, he again used it as an example as to why he fears for the England man’s future under manager Jose Mourinho.

“When Jose took the job I worried for Harry Kane. He played under Pochettino and Tottenham sort of had a go wherever they went. There were goals, there were crosses, there were shots. Now he’s going to be playing up front on his own and it is going to be hard work. In the end, he’s trying to hit 60-yard passes just to be involved in the game. That’s not Harry Kane. He’s not fit. He’s definitely not fit. They played with virtually 10 men. I think he’ll have a serious think at the end of the season, I really do. I don’t see him getting 25-30 goals next season with the way Jose will want to play. And Jose won’t want to play like he did when he first got in there and it was 4-2 and 5-3, no way. He’ll like those games like Friday night, 1-1.”

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Again, Merson will get some support here given the way that Mourinho more traditionally uses his target men, as that’s certainly not Harry’s style and it arguably won’t get the best out of him – however, the 26-year-old has found the net 17 times already this season, and seven of those goals have come under Mourinho in his ten games so far.

Whilst Merson’s fears about the future are understandable (and shared by plenty of fans) trying to use the United performance and his first game back since early January as a justification is a little cheap as nobody was at the races in reality.

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  • johnmax says:

    a defensive set up with the emphasis on counter attacking is maurinio ” s preference and unfortunately it means his main priority is not to lose —
    this is not the spurs way of playing and i hate to think that for the next 18 months we will have to put up with negative football even when we are the home team and at that a team that has always been exciting to watch as a high pressing attack minded outfit and earned the plaudits from the media and rival fans alike

  • FrankieSpurs says:

    I am disappointed with Mourinho.
    He should have replaced Kane midway the second half.

  • Wentworth says:

    Really disappointed with the appointment of Jose. He is taking us backwards with his negative,defensive tactics. We have become a mid-table, boring team. We used to play flowing attacking football with 70% possession. Now it’s all huff and puff and great saves from our overworked keeper.

  • Pez says:

    I really don’t see this being Mourinho’s fault, Kane has a history of disappearing in big games that goes much further back than the Portuguese coaches tenure. Kane is also a notorious slow starter following injury or on season restarts, and given the serious lack of striker depth in our squad which in itself is a longterm problem it is hard to see how this problem is resolved without credible investment here. That said I don’t see why in the last 20 mins Mourinho couldn’t have taken Kane off due to his complete lack of influence pushed either Son or Bergwijn into the centre and brought Ndombele as an attacking midfield playmaker. The other main question for me is why after scoring do Spurs continually sit back and allow the opposition to attack again and again?

  • 123spurs says:

    Kane up top on his own running around is pointless, kane is meant to be our best player so play to his strengths and build tactics around that. I expected a lot better from jose, but sadly he wont last long into next season. Spurs were never able to sit back and defend, even with poch so our best way was fast counter attacking etc, you wont get that with jose, so why have fast attacking players doing more defending then attacking, no shots on goal in 2nd half against MU says it all.

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