Tottenham Hotspur star Harry Kane endured a nightmare evening as his side were beaten in the 132nd North London derby at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday.
Erik Lamela went from hero to zero, having scored an outrageous rabona to open the scoring in the first half, he then received his marching orders after a second booking for elbowing Kieran Tierney in the face.
The visitors could only muster up six attempts on goal all game, with only 50% of those being on target compared to the Gunners’ 13 shots, via SofaScore.
Does Kane need a rest?
YES!
NO!
Kane found it difficult to have any sort of influence in the derby, a match he usually regularly turns up for – indeed, the England talisman is the all-time goalscorer in this very fixture (11 goals).
Throughout the 90 minutes, the 27-year-old contributed towards 50% of their total shots (three) and failed to find the net, aside from being caught offside for one strike, or really trouble Bernd Leno whatsoever.
Kane also had the second-fewest number of touches of any Spurs starter (27). Even the goalkeeper, Hugo Lloris, managed more touches (41) and he spent the same amount of time on the pitch as the striker.
That merely emphasises how ineffective the £108m-rated sensation was in such a crucial game.
What makes it worse is that from those 27 touches, he lost possession ten times, so it’s not as if he was suffering from a complete lack of service – he was just wasteful when given the chance.
It means Kane lost possession once every 2.7 touches, the worst of any Spurs player – even Moura, who lost possession a whopping 19 times, managed to keep hold of the ball for longer spells. He even struggled when having the ball, making only nine of 14 passes (64%).
The 48-time England international was pretty much nullified by the impressive defensive exploits of Gabriel and David Luiz as the Spurs striker won just 44% of his nine aerial duels, as per SofaScore.
Kane has contributed 16 goals towards Spurs’ total of 47 for the season (34%), so Mourinho was surely expecting to see more from just an influential player but in return, he got a shockingly lightweight and anonymous showing.
It was a performance that will undoubtedly leave him bitterly disappointed and hugely let down. He really needed Kane to step up more after Heung-min Son was withdrawn through injury and it wasn’t until the final 20 minutes that we saw some sort of spark.
It was a night to forget for Kane.
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