Harry Kane: Examining his performance for Spurs over the last two Premier League seasons

Tottenham have reportedly made a significant new contract offer to Harry Kane in a bid to stave off interest from Bayern Munich and Manchester United.

The England captain is set to become a free agent next summer but that didn’t stop Bayern from offering Spurs €70 million (£60m, $76m) plus add-ons for Kane last week. A bid that was knocked back by Spurs chairman Daniel Levy who has said the club has no intention of selling, according to reports.

Kane holds all the cards with Spurs desperate to keep ahold of their all-time record goalscorer, while Bayern seek to sign a new No.9 after a close-run race for the Bundesliga title and Manchester United having an obvious need at the position with two strikers expected to be signed this summer.

Real Madrid were also linked with a move for Kane, who surpassed Jimmy Greaves’ landmark of 266 goals last season – a record that had stood for more than 50 years – but Spurs are attempting to extend his time in north London.

Levy has been active early in the transfer window in turning the loans of Dejan Kulusevski and Pedro Porro into permanent deals, signing goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario from Empoli and acquiring James Maddison from Leicester City, as the Premier League club makes preparations for its first season since appointing Ange Postecoglou as its new head coach.

We are delighted to announce the signing of James Maddison!

Let's go, Madders 🤍

— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) June 28, 2023

With Spurs aiming to bridge a transition from Antonio Conte’s 3-4-3 to Postecoglu’s 4-3-3, Kane committing to the team would ease the pressure on their recruitment plans with a transfer for VfL Wolfsburg’s left-sided centre-back Micky van de Ven looking close and a No.6 likely on their shortlist.

After scoring 47 league goals over the last two seasons, Kane appears to be at the peak of his powers. Yet, he will turn 30 this month which leaves questions over whether Levy would be wrong to turn away a substantial bid for a player with 12 months remaining on his contract.

Or, is Levy’s focus on ensuring Postecoglou is a success after the relative successive failures of Jose Mourinho, Nuno Espirito Santo and Conte? And, is having Kane for one more season at the cost of losing him to a free transfer worth it to achieve that?

For the purposes of all interested parties, let’s take a look at how Harry Kane graded in PFF’s analytics over the last two seasons.

Harry Kane 2022-23

PFF shooting grade: 92.5

Since he was given his Spurs debut by Tim Sherwood in 2014, Kane has found the back of the net in the league and requires 47 more goals to equal Alan Shearer’s record for the most in Premier League history (260).

Last season, saw him pass the 200-goal milestone and finish the campaign with 30 goals – the second time he has done so in his career.

For all the accolades of Erling Haaland’s record-breaking debut season for champions Manchester City, Kane’s numbers are almost on par with the Norwegian.

A shooting grade of 92.5 for Kane was generated off 113 shot events, only two fewer than Haaland whose grade of 94.4 led all Premier League players. The Spurs captain does, however, have a higher adjusted-accuracy shot on target rate of 69% compared to 60%.

In matches against clubs in the Big Six, Kane failed to score against only one team in 2022-23: Manchester United. He also registered two grades which surpassed the 80.0-mark.

Injuries were not an issue for Kane as he appeared in every league game for Spurs and out of all outfield players only Arsenal’s Gabriel (3,762) and Everton’s James Tarkowski (3,741) played more minutes than Kane’s 3,726.

This length of game time means it comes as no surprise to see Kane lead all strikers with 61 chances created. However, even on a per-90 basis he still holds top spot with 1.5 chances created per-90 and was tied with Liverpool’s Darwin Núñez (min. 1,600 minutes played).

But not even Núñez (66.4) could get close to Kane’s PFF passing grade of 87.2. Only Arsenal-bound Kai Havertz could produce the same kind of quality as a passer in Chelsea colours last season with a grade of 86.2 – no other striker topped the 80.0-mark.

Harry Kane 2021-22

PFF shooting grade: 89.7

If not for the arrival of Haaland, Kane would have gone back-to-back seasons as PFF’s top-graded striker as he fell a touch below the 90.0-mark in 2021-22 with a grade of 89.7.

Kane finished the season with a total of 17 goals, managing to overcome some early-season hiccups which saw him score just once in his first 14 appearances as Nuno Espirito Santo lasted just 11 games as head coach.

Again, he was a difference-maker in matches against teams in the Big Six. In his two-goal display versus Manchester City on Matchday-26, Kane’s three shots returned an away victory for Spurs at the Etihad and a 92.7 shooting grade for their striker.

The only time he would generate a better grade in the season was two weeks later against Everton when Kane scored twice again and graded at 95.1 – the highest grade received by a striker in 2021-22.

As a passer, he was exceptional with a PFF passing grade of 89.8 although his chances created are lower at 51. This translates as a per-90 rate of 1.3, a ranking of tenth out of 29 qualifiers at the position.