I sincerely hope people aren't judging Kane based on that Man City performance in which Spurs had two actual shots and scored from both.
Kane is a striker and should be the furthest man forward: we've discovered through experimentation that he can drop deeper to good effect but playing CM is not the role for which he's widely regarded as world top 3.
In a game where you're so outclassed that you're essentially penned into your own half, your striker is never going to be productive and if he does something, it's likely to be down to sheer luck. Sure, Kane could have come up with a moment of magic but so could Messi during all of the games in which Argentina have sucked in recent years. More often than not, they don't.
That's why they're called moments of magic -- if they occurred in every game, there would be nothing special about them. Kane still always has one in him - just look at Juventus - but on that particular day against Man City, he didn't.
Everyone behind Kane should be shouldering far more of the "blame" than him for the performance. They're occupying the positions that are supposed to be reclaiming possession and moving the ball into the attacking third.
"Better than Kane" Eriksen, especially, was somehow simultaneously anonymous and poor while being in a much better and more natural position to influence the game. In a team squeezed into a defensive two-thirds area of the pitch, the striker is the only player who is always out of position and he's necessarily going to struggle to imprint himself on the game as a result.
It's tragically funny how reactionary football fans are -- performing 180s on a game-by-game basis. Against Villa, Lucas was one of Spurs' worst players and the game was "crying out for Eriksen"; Eriksen comes on, has no direct involvement in any of the goals, yet Spurs' fortunes are reversed so he's lauded as the hero, the lynchpin. The most superficial analysis of what happened is "Spurs were losing, Eriksen came on, they won, ergo Eriksen is their best player, a vital part of the team, the engine room etc.".
Eriksen was useless against Man City. At the same time: "Spurs need a forward-thinking substitution, Lucas comes on, gets a goal", which gives way to an equally simplistic analysis about how Lucas is essential to the team. Some people treat it as a tactical masterstroke too: what, to bring on a short player unlikely to score from a cross to then score from a corner? Doesn't really seem planned. Anyway, now everyone's forgotten that Lucas was previously useless and Eriksen was a game-changer. And by next week, someone else will be the hero. So goes football.
What really happened last week is that the team's structure completely changed after Eriksen came on against Villa, Spurs gained width, then some necessarily daring late forward runs from players who had been bad to that point allowed Kane to do his thing. Kane's second strike was technically superior to anything Eriksen actually did in that match. This week, Lucas got a fine goal, from a set piece, that Kane would also have scored if he was in that position. Lucas didn't create anything. Right place, right time.
Eriksen and Lucas were the obvious heroes of their respective games but there was nothing spectacular or irreplaceable about what they really did.
I'm worried about what effect Kane's persistent ankle injuries have had and I'd agree that he doesn't look like the player who would start for any team in the world in any non-defensive position on the pitch as he did at times a few years ago. Despite all that, he's still the best 9 in the world as far as I'm concerned. His ability to play 10 and all-round technical abilities, even if diminished, are a bonus.
On the other hand, Kane is a notoriously slow starter. He's not match fit. Yet scoring twice on matchday one, especially given the nature of his second, is still far ahead of what he's done in previous seasons. I wonder if he might take time to get up to pace again and then become a wrecking ball this season. Well, maybe if everything behind him falls into place.
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