Hats off to Harry Kane

On Thursday evening Harry Kane will lead England out at Wembley, knowing victory will secure their place at next summer’s World Cup finals in Russia.

The Walthamstow-born striker has the world at his feet at this moment in time and its difficult to remember a more valuable asset to the game to have come from the country that invented it – there certainly hasn’t been anyone that has impressed me so much since I began writing for this website five years ago.

The nature of football writing, and those reading the words will have you scrambling around you mind for alternatives but one thing that cannot be argued is that the twenty-four year old is favourite with the bookmakers to win the Premier League’s Golden Boot for what would be an unprecedented third straight year.

Homegrown

In an era dominated by foreign talent, Kane has beat the likes of Romelu Lukaku, Sergio Aguero and Diego Costa in the race to become the top scorer in England’s top division and, when first claiming the prize in 2016 became the first homegrown player to lift the trophy since Sunderland’s Kevin Phillips at the very start of the 21st century.

He repeated the feat last season and is currently just one goal behind Manchester United’s Lukaku in the charts despite his well publicized August hoodoo with his one hundredth Premier League goal likley to come by Christmas at his current rate.

Of the twenty-six players to have reached triple-figures in the Premier League the vast majority do, despite the influx of overseas talent come from England. In fact only nine from the twenty-six to have managed so many goals are foreign and just one – Thierry Henry – from the top ten.

Youth on his side

Just four on the list are still playing in the division. Wayne Rooney is in second but sixty short of Alan Shearer’s record of 260, which is more than double that achieved by Sergio Aguero of Manchester City.

The other two forwards that can be found on the list are veterans Peter Crouch and Jermain Defoe – the former will be thirty-seven in January and the latter thirty-five this week meaning that Kane has pretty much an unrivaled climb ahead of him as he bids to become the most effective striker the league has ever seen.

Head turned

Inevitably there are already whispers of potential moves abroad for Kane with Real Madrid reportedly eyeing a move to secure his services and while he says he could never rule such a transfer out, the romantic in me would love to see him achieve the heights he is undoubtedly capable of in the EPL.

Kane averaged twenty-five league goals in each of the last three Premier League seasons. If he continues at that rate and sticks around he could topple Shearer by his thirty-second birthday.

He can be backed at 7/4 to finish this season as top scorer while you can find a price of 7/1 for him to at least match the all-time record set by the former Newcastle United hero over a decade ago.