Well, the game's changed, so any direct comparison is going to be futile. The most significant difference is that Shearer played as a traditional centre forward with another striker alongside and with service from two wingers. What I meant by saying I understood the comparison made on MOTD is that Kane seems a ruthless goalscorer in the Shearer mould. Many goalscorers have had great skill, pace or movement. I'm not saying Kane doesn't have any of those attributes, but he doesn't have an outstanding trait, like Henry's pace or Aguero's movement, for example. The knack he's showing is getting goals when needed consistently. Perhaps Andrew Cole would be a better comparison.
When Kane starts blatantly elbowing defenders when challenging for a corner and getting away with it because he's the England captain, then the comparisons with Shearer are justified.
The real comparison for Kane is surely with the Rooney of 4/5 years ago. They're both dangerous from any area in the attacking third, they can both play as a 9 or off the striker or anywhere in the attacking line at a push, and they both have great work rates. Kane has perhaps more of a defined position than Rooney - he's definitely most effective as the front man - and we have to hope that Kane doesn't throw his toys out of the pram or prove a bit of a bad apple like Rooney has in the past. But I think as players they're similar, and they're playing in the same era so to speak so the comparison is slightly easier to make.
Yeah, I wasn't disagreeing with you so much as the comparison being made at all. I think it does both a disservice, Shearer was a much better goalscorer than Kane and Kane is about much more than just finishing off moves. They are 2 players that bucked the trend of fast strikers, which was coming in to fashion at the time Shearer was in his prime, I suppose. I just think what Shearer did, like Van Nistelrooy, was easier to pin down, with Kane I don't see it. I think he's more like an in-form Rooney, he seems to have that desire to be involved with everything and the allround footballing ability to make it work. I really don't see Kane as a clinical finisher, or the player that just has a knack for being in the right place in the box. If he had a little more pace I think everyone would be talking about him as an attacking midfielder, like Barkley. I think if you gave Shearer or Aguero the chances Kane had against Sheffield United last week, they're finding the corners of the goal with their shots, they're the natural finishers to me.
Great minds YV What I really like about Kane's finishing (and Eriksen's too actually) is that they place their shots and keep them low a lot of the time. It looks less spectacular than taking the back of the net off with a top corner shot but its probably harder to read and save. Both of them disguise where they're shooting very well. They can both generate power too of course, but often they choose not to. Which I'm very impressed by.
It was Jermaine Defoe's insistence on doing the opposite that drove me scatty at times. He always said it was better to leather the thing at the goal, however, it regularly hit the goalkeeper. This was especially the case when he was through on a one on one. Maybe taking Steffen Freund off shooting practice is producing benefits? Whatever is the cause, it's welcome as we seem to be able to win 0-3 away having had a similar amount of shots and shots on targets. It may just be that Hugo's a better 'keeper that others have?
It appears we are still performing worse in the shot conversion table than our place in the table: http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/premier-league/chancenverwertung/wettbewerb/GB1 We're eighth behind Chelsea (19.5), Man Utd. (19.2), Arsenal (18.3), Southampton (17.9), West Ham(17.9), Man City (16.7), Everton (16.4), Spurs (16.3). However, we're third in relation to shots actually on target.
I'm generally happy with the vast majority of the squad apart from one of course. I'd be sad to see Capoue and Vlad the Impaler go but not Kaboul and Adebayor. I'm ecstatic with the form of Harry and Christian but I hope all this doesn't come crashing down around our ears on Saturday. Another unpredictable score.
Unfortunately they are in very good form themselves at the moment. As poor as Villa seem to be, the Gooners look to have hit top form. I'd take a draw now.
All these posts about giving young players time, then plenty of posts about how Lamela will never make it xD He needs time.
I don't think form counts for a lot in these derby matches. I can't see Arsenal playing like they did at City (although they should). It should be an open game. Another 4-4?
Lamela needs time yes. I wouldn't want to completely write him off but he doesn't offer as much as others right now. Can we carry him for 6 months, a year, 2 years even? I'm not sure, but at the same time if we were to sell him it'd probably be for a big loss right now. We could well see him develop into a more central player, its certainly where he seems to try and play most of the time anyway, and maybe we will see more of his qualities with him developing as a backup to Eriksen. The NLD is as ever very hard to call, and the result will be very hard to read into because so much goes out of the window in that game.
We sat back against Arsenal this year and were arguably unlucky not to get all three points. Arsenal let us dominate possession while grabbing the only goal at WHL last year. They beat a top team for the first time in ages recently by playing on the counter. I think they will sit back against us, and are a good bet to get at least a draw if we don’t have a good counter-strategy in mind. Anything could happen, no doubt. I wouldn’t take a draw, though. Spurs have to beat the top teams to get anywhere. We made a good start versus Chelsea. Now we need to make it two. I was a mild backer of Kane, though I didn’t in any way think he was going to be a big star this early. What I liked about him was that he was a good all-around player for a striker. He always looked useful, and looked like a good winger when he played there, which is unusual, I thought, for a nine.
What gives me most satisfaction is the way he's proved all the mockers from other teams wrong. We haven't heard from them for a while have we? Revenge is a dish best served cold and his goals have proved them wrong.
On an Academy theme + those of a certain age, my hope for Kane was that he would be like Mark Falco. Not a supreme goalscorer, but give the club good service and had a decent strike rate (1 in 3 games) . It looks like he is not settling for that.
Lamela's problem has always been his price tag, if we'd have signed him for a sub £10m figure many would be saying that they're still excited to see him develop, which is what should be the case anyway but the £30m figure puts an expectation on him to deliver straight from the get-go. Don't get me wrong it has been a bit frustrating at how he shows glimpses of magic but then seems to never follow it up in the next game but I still believe the kid will come good. Just needs to work on his timing and decisions, he spots the right passes but gets the timing and execution wrong a lot and there are moments where he runs into trouble where he could be more cautious. He's 22 though, plenty of time to develop and I'm confident he'll come good, even if it means waiting another 6 months or longer. Completely agree about the NLD, this one's harder than ever to predict as both teams are performing evenly, usually one side is having a good patch with the other looking to improve but this weekend's fixture sees us both performing at a decent standard and coming off of good wins and clean sheets.
What impresses me about Kane is the simplicity with which his goals happen and that, dare I say it, reminds me very much of Jimmy Greaves who made scoring goals look very simple. This invisible skill is down to a football brain that naturally puts the player in the right place at the right time, Kane has this ability which makes him a very exciting prospect indeed.
I would have to see him play a lot more before I dared make that comparison. I saw Greaves play numerous times. And, to this day, he's still probably the deadliest finisher I ever saw. Always cool, never panicked or snatched at a chance - and rarely missed. As he said once when asked for his secret; The goal is 8yds wide, 8ft high, there's only one goalkeeper, I just pass it into the empty bit!
I agree with you, at this stage in Kane's career a comparison with Greaves in the sense of quality would be daft, it is method that I am comparing
