Wow, I’m actually a little shocked this deal is done. Bayern Munich have gone full force and flexed their financial muscles to finally prize Harry Kane from Tottenham for a monster $110M deal.
This is a fantastic deal for Bayern and Harry Kane.
After months of speculation, hardball negotiations, and near-fatal setbacks, Bayern Munich have at long last secured the signature of Harry Kane from Tottenham Hotspur for a club and German record transfer fee of $110M. And, as I’ve said a few times now, this was a brilliant move for both parties.
Alright, I’m not going to go to in depth with how it benefits both sides as: A. It’s rather obvious how this improves Bayern’s team and Harry Kane’s career, B. I’ve already been over this topic a few times this past week or so alone. So, instead, I’m going to talk about how this move was the only logical decision despite the rather stupid arguments being made in the media over the benefits of staying a Spurs player.
As for the stupid media arguments, the biggest reason I’ve been seeing as for why Harry Kane should have rejected the 33X Bundesliga champions and 6X Champions League winners in Bayern Munich in favor of staying at Tottenham, a team who hasn’t won a trophy in 15 years, is to break Alan Shearer’s 260 Premier League goal record.
Now, on the face of the argument, the prospect of becoming the single greatest scorer in the history of top-flight English football, a competition that has been going on for 135 years, is a very enticing prospect. And even more so for an English striker, the captain of the English national team, and the iconic player for one of London’s top clubs in the Premier League as Harry Kane was just last week.
If Kane was to have chosen to finish out his career with Tottenham, he would have most definitely broken Shearer’s record of 260 Premier League goals as Kane is only 47 goals behind him (Kane: 213 goals) and has scored at least 17 goals/season these last nine years. Honestly, he would be the all-time record goal scorer in just 2-3 years and would be the first player to score 300 Premier League goals in the history of the competition…right?
Actually, no, he wouldn’t.
“What are you talking about, James?” you’re probably wondering right now. “How would Harry Kane scoring 260+ goals not make him the record goal scorer when the record is 260 goals?” Well, the answer to that conundrum is quite simple: Alan Shearer is NOT the record goal sorcerer of top-flight English football. In fact, he’s not even in the Top-3.
Sure, Alan Shearer is the record goal scorer of the Premier League with his 260 strikes for Blackburn Rovers and Newcastle United, yet his total of 283 top-flight goals for Blackburn, Newcastle, AND his 23 goals at the start of his career for Southampton in the old English 1st Division (aka: the old name for the Premier League) only puts him at 5th place in the all-time scoring leaders.
That’s still an AMAZING total for Shearer and he is one of the greatest scorers in English football history, but Gordon Hodgson (4th place-288 goals; 1925-1940), Dixie Dean (3rd place-310 goals; 1924-1938), Steve Bloomer (2nd place-314 goals; 1892-1914), and Spurs legend Jimmy Greaves (1st place-357 goals; 1957-1971) all have more goals than Shearer.
In fact, Shearer has the 2nd WORST goals/game ratio (0.51) in the Top-15 all-time goal scorers in English top-flight history behind only Liverpool legend Ian Rush’s (14th place-232 goals; 1980-1998) 0.45, while guys like Greaves (0.69), Hodgson (0.63), and Dean (a CRAZY 0.83) all had 12 percentage points or better goal scoring ratios than Shearer.
Why is everyone claiming Shearer is the greatest scorer of all-time and he has the all-time record when he not only is not even in the Top-3 of English top-flight scorers, but also isn’t even comparable to the Top-10’s goals/game ratio? Are we really forgetting the 110+ year history of football before the old First Division was REBRANDED (not recreated) as the Premier League back in 1992? It’s still the SAME COMPETITION!
So, with Harry Kane not even being in the Top-15 (he’s 19th on the all-time list), it would make no sense why he’d stay at a bad Spurs squad and try to overcome Alan Shearer’s “all-time record” of being the 5th best English goal scorer when he really has no shot of overtaking his fellow Spurs legend Jimmy Greaves’ 357 goals.
Kane would literally have to score 21 goals/season for the next SEVEN YEARS (so, when he would be 37 going on 38) to just match Greaves’ ACTUAL all-time record. And with Spurs’ struggles and Kane’s injury issues, passing up the opportunity to win serious trophies at Bayern and becoming a legend of the Bavarian Giants just to POTENTIALLY get close to Jimmy Greaves’ all-time record is stupid and the media knows it.
Yet, in their strange attempt to erase nearly 110+ years of football history to prop up their “Premier League” branding, they’re more than willing to forget the iconic legends of the past and their achievements and try and drag everyone along with their propaganda with them.
So, Kane leaving for Bayern really was the only logical choice he could make to further his career, and I’m glad he made the move.
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