Tottenham Hotspur no longer just the 'Harry Kane team’

The Harry Kane team. 

Commonly referred to as Tottenham or Spurs, the Harry Kane Team is a professional football club in London, England, that competes in the English Premier League. This would have been the excerpt for Tottenham Hotspur had rival Manchester City manager, Pep Guardiola, published their Wikipedia page.

The Spaniard referred to Spurs as ‘The Harry Kane Team’ in October 2017. A few weeks later, Guardiola clarified that he meant no disrespect to the club, and was instead complimenting Kane’s consistent performances. When you look at his goalscoring record for Spurs and his importance to the club, would you really blame anyone for calling them the ‘Harry Kane Team’?

Since 2014-15, his first full season at Spurs, Harry Kane has scored 32.58% of Tottenham Hotspur's total goals. In the same time frame, Lionel Messi has scored 31.21% of Barcelona’s goals and Cristiano Ronaldo has 31.63% of Juventus and Real Madrid’s goals in all competitions. Considering that any team that Cristiano Ronaldo plays for becomes the ‘Ronaldo’ team and Lionel Messi is the undisputed ‘Mr Barcelona FC,’ it is hard to sweep aside the comparisons, and the notion that it’s not completely absurd to call Tottenham Hotspur, the ‘Harry Kane team’.

But is that really the case? 

Are Tottenham Hotspur dependent on Kane? 

Do they really struggle without the English talisman? 

Spurs’ results from the start of 2014-15 till the end of last season certainly seem to point towards this conclusion.

Tottenham Hotspur with Harry Kane:

Played: 149 games

Win rate: 59%

Goals per game: 2.0

Tottenham Hotspur without Harry Kane:

Played: 13

Win rate: 38%

Goals per game: 1.2

It is evident that the Spurs have under-performed without Harry Kane in past seasons, but let’s have a look at how the have fared without Kane this season, shall we?

2018-19 Tottenham Hotspur with Harry Kane:

Played: 40 games

Win rate: 50%

Goals per game: 1.87

2018-19 Tottenham Hotspur without Harry Kane:

Played: 10 games

Win rate: 80%

Goals per game: 2.1

The Spurs are doing much better without Harry Kane in terms of both results and goals scored compared to the previous seasons. In fact, they are getting better results without him. Yes, the sample size is pretty small but 20% of their total matches isn’t a completely negligible subset either.

Moving from results to performances, let’s consider the expected-goals (XG) metric for a quick overview of how the Spurs’ attacking front performed without Harry Kane in the Premier League over the last three seasons. This metric reflects the probability of a given goal-scoring chance to be converted into a goal. It considers the quality of each goal-scoring chance along with the usual stats like the number of shots taken.

2016/17 English Premier League Season:

Tottenham had a total XG of 70.07 over 38 matches with an average of 1.84 goals/match.

Harry Kane had an average 0.70 XG per 90 mins for the season.

In the eight Premier League matches that Spurs were without Kane, the average XG dropped to 1.63 - 0.21 less than the team’s overall average.

2017/18 English Premier League Season:

Tottenham had a total XG of 68.91 in 38 matches with an average of 1.81 goals/match. 

Kane had an average 0.78 XG per 90 mins for the season.

The only Premier League match that Spurs played without Kane, they had XG of 1.09 which was 0.7 less than the team’s overall average for the season.

2018/19 English Premier League Season:

This season (as of 16/04/18), Tottenham have a total XG of 56.59 for 33 matches with an average of 1.71 goals/match. 

Harry Kane has an average of 0.59 XG per 90 mins for the season.

Spurs have played five Premier League matches without Harry Kane this season, with an average XG of 2.07 which is 0.4 more than their expected goals average for the season.

Tottenham has scored 12 goals in the five league matches Kane has missed, with an average of 2.4 goals per match, compared with a total of 52 goals from the 28 games with Kane, at an average of 1.86 goals per game. Pretty impressive!

The argument that Spurs have not faced many top-level opponents without Harry Kane this season is a fair and valid one. But even with Kane in the side, Spurs have taken just seven points out of a possible 27 against Top-6 teams in the league, winning just two matches and losing at least once to each team.

Although Tottenham Hotspur have suffered four of their last six domestic cup exits when Kane was unavailable, they also managed to beat Borussia Dortmund 3-0 at Wembley in the first leg of their Champions League Round of 16 clash this year. BVB came into the match as top of their group, finishing ahead of Atletico Madrid, and with a 5-point lead over Bayern Munich in the German domestic Bundesliga. To beat such an in-form side 3-0 without Harry Kane is no mean feat.

A huge chunk of credit for this change goes to the tactical flexibility of manager Mauricio Pochettino. It’s not easy losing your key man, especially when that player is the top goal scorer for the past 5 seasons (including the 2018-19 season). 

With the attacking duo of Son Heung-min and Christian Eriksen stepping up when needed, Pochettino seems to have formed a lethal attacking setup which functions smoothly both with and without Harry Kane.

The manager has found a goalscoring solution in Son, who has already matched his last season’s tally of 18 goals even after missing six matches this season. This is the third consecutive season that Son has scored 18 or more goals in a season, and should he score four more goals before the end of this season, would mark his best goal-scoring season with Spurs.

Christian Eriksen, just like in previous seasons, has been an invaluable asset with 24 goal contributions, combining 8 goals and 16 assists for the season. Lucas Moura with 12 goals, Dele Alli and Fernando Llorente with 7 goals each, have all managed to fill in and ensure that Kane’s absence is not felt in the important final third.

When one player scores 32.58% of your team’s goals, there’s no questioning that player’s importance to the side. Tottenham Hotspur definitely need Harry Kane fit and firing to go from a Top-4 side to ending their trophy drought, but with Pochetino’s tactical prowess, and other players stepping up in the absence of the talismanic skipper, Tottenham Hotspur are surely no longer the ‘Harry Kane’ team!

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