Alan Shearer about Harry Kane: “One of the best centre-forward performances I’ve seen this season”

This weekend we seem to have witnessed a real sensation, as no one expected a flabby Tottenham Hotspur to be able to break Manchester City‘s 15-game unbeaten run. It happened in the final seconds thanks to a header by magnificent Harry Kane (2:3). This result has not only revived Spurs’ hopes of getting into the top 4, but also the intrigue of who will win the English Premier League.

Tottenham unexpectedly managed to stop a fiery Man City, who have already literally seen themselves lifting the EPL trophy: Spurs were giving the ball to their opponents which created an opportunity to execute a couple of lightning counterattacks, while the Citizens persistently created chances against a low defensive block but failed to capitalize on them.

Spurs approached the game in bad shape: they lost to Southampton and Wolverhampton, and Conte criticized the management for poor transfer politics. Antonio, however, explained the harshness with a wrong translation, but there was still a lot of turbulence around the club.

Nevertheless, the game went according to the following scenario: in the first half, newcomer Dejan Kulusevski scored a quick opener as the Spurs literally cut the whole field in three passes.

Then Tottenham clamped down on their goal and gave away the possession completely, the Citizens know how to act in such situations – Ilkay Gundogan equalized in the 33rd minute after plenty of created chances. However, in the second half, Harry Kane, for whom City were something like kryptonite, suddenly netted again: before this game, 28-years-old striker had not scored against them for about six years.

Moreover, after Riyad Mahrez converted a penalty in injury time, everyone thought the fate of the match was decided and each team would take away one point. 

But it didn’t happen as in the literally remaining seconds, Spurs managed to create another attack where Kane snatched the victory in the 95th minute. Fantastic

“This is why football is the greatest game you will ever see!”

Jamie Carragher, who was commentating on one of the TV channels, shouted on air.

As a result, it ended up being 2-3 – Pep Guardiola‘s third defeat of the season in the EPL, and, what is remarkable, two of them were at the hands of Spurs. And no one doubts that this all happened thanks to Harry Kane’s tremendous performance – arguably the best match of his most powerful career.

One of the most popular and famous attackers of England, Alan Shearer, was not stingy with compliments after the game:

“That’s one of the best all-round centre-forward performances I’ve seen all season, anywhere. Intelligence, aggression, goals, assists, he was just far, far too good for City’s centre-halves Aymeric Laporte and Ruben Dias – and it is not very often we say that. He was just too clever for them.”

“Part of Tottenham’s gameplan was to keep finding Kane with short passes, because none of the City defenders wanted to drop in with him,”

Shearer explained.

“Spurs kept on getting runners forward to feed off Kane and get in behind. His first-time pass to release Son Heung-min for their first goal was absolutely sensational. For Tottenham’s second goal, I knew, as soon as Ryan Sessegnon picked up the ball, that Kane was going to score because he spotted the gap and no-one was going to pick him up. Then came the clinical finish. It was just incredible to watch. Everything he did was magnificent, including his winner. Say what you want about the defending, and it was rubbish, there was only ever going to be one guy getting on the end of that cross and it wasn’t Kyle Walker.”

The former Newcastle United player speculated on TV.

Jammie Carragher, another football pundit, agrees with Shearer:

“That was one of the best performances I’ve seen this season, it really was. It was a privilege to watch. What made it so special was that Kane didn’t get a lot of the ball, but when it came into him, everything he did was pure class. Kane is one of the best passers of the ball in the Premier League, he’s not far behind Kevin De Bruyne.”

Antonio Conte praises Harry after the clash:

“We are talking about a world-class striker. He’s working very well and he’s also improving his physical aspects. I’m working with him to become a point of reference for us. In the past, he’s liked to go outside the box and he’s also very good at this.”

The English forward himself feels that this victory is extremely important and hopes that it will encourage team to win the next matches, which will help them compete for the Champions League spots:

“It was a crazy game. We worked so hard for so long. We were 2-1 ahead for such a long time in the second half. Then to see the penalty awarded was so heart-breaking, but credit to the boys for creating another chance at the end.”

“For me it was [about ending] three losses in a row and we had to find a way of getting our season back on track. To get the result we did was really, really special. The boys worked their socks off today. To get the goals was obviously nice. We were great from Hugo Lloris all the way through. We have high standards of ourselves and we’ve got ourselves in a position where we can really fight for the top four. Football’s about bouncing back. We can’t get too high or too low. The performance today shows we’re fighting to the end. Hopefully we can use it as momentum going forward. We probably have to learn how to be more consistent in a long season to be in the top four.”

said the man of the match.

• Tottenham broke City’s 15-match unbeaten streak in the league. It started in November, and since then Pep’s team won 14 times and drew once.
• Guardiola again lost to Conte – the third match of the last five.
• With Tottenham’s victory, the championship race has also come to life – the gap between City and second-placed Liverpool has now shrunk to just six points. But Jurgen Klopp still has a game in hand.