Dele and Son need to make more of Kane playmaking ability
Since there's a bit of a lul in the Spurs schedule and we're doing so well without Kane, I was watching a bit of Kane highlights to remind myself what the difference was.
Kane's ability on the ball is utterly bonkers, the strength, the vision for long and medium range passes, his crossing is one of the best in the league IMO. Coming in deep, controlling the ball and launching a peach of through ball as he does his usual impression of Bambi... so good.
However, the one thing I always found in common in so many of these plays was that Dele or Son often miscontrolled the ball and wasted the chance. One example was the FA Cup game against Swansea last season where Kane came on and launched a perfect cross from almost the half way line and Dele fucked it up and just about managed to get it in (no assist registered for Kane). Not easy chances, but a lot of these passes deserved a goal. Dele in particular has missed some sitters.
The difference I noticed with Llorente is that he doesn't really do that, he stays high and does mostly knock downs or short passes in and around the box and Son has been relatively more successful in finishing those chances.
When Dele and Kane come back I hope they can work on this, because if Dele and Son get a bit more clinical at finishing those Kane crosses (like Dele did against Arse) we could go from outsiders to front runners in the title races in future.
As a side note, we need more of Dele at the back post like last season and the one before.
Posted Feb 17, 2019, 2:25 PM UTC
I have to disagree, Llorente has to play knockdowns and little short passes in and around the box purely because he can’t do what Kane can in terms of coming deep and linking up play. The goal you’re referring too against Swansea, Alli nowhere near nearly fucked it up, it was a decent enough first touch, he had to take it early as defenders were covering allowing the keeper to make a save and then you could argue his quick mind and ability allowed him to finish the rebound? All footballers miss sitters (see Aguero vs Chelsea last week) does it make him any less clinical? No. Both Sonny and Alli have incredible finishing ability with or without Kane assisting them.
Agreed. I appreciate what the OP was trying to do here in terms of what can be improved within the squad but it feels odd to “target” Dele and Sonny for this. Especially Sonny, who has arguably kept us afloat in the league since coming back from the Asian Cup and has imo gone from a pretty good finisher to a really great one. Like you said, everyone misses sitters/clear cut chances. Kane /himself/ has missed several this season, as have Lucas, Lamela and Eriksen. And that’s maybe not “ideal” but it’s fine. It’s all part of the game.
Everyone here seems to be interpreting this criticism of a very specific and singular aspect of our attack as me calling them all shit.
Admittedly my timing is poor given the recent results, and yes Son has been critical in us getting some very laboured victories, but over the last two years there is a consistent pattern of him and Dele failing to execute runs like the ones I mentioned.
Hopefully when Kane and Dele and back this is something we can improve on. There's a lot of good goals to be had there.
I don’t think you’re calling them shit, to be fair, and I don’t think you’re insulting or attacking them in any way either. I’ve seen your comments before and you seem fond of Sonny, anyway. But to call them wasteful when one is one of the best forwards in Europe and the other a prolific goal scoring mf (well, Dele maybe not so much this season for a variety of reasons) is an odd choice, IMO.
The timing like you said is probably a big part of why everyone is reacting negatively to your post, as well as the lack of statistical proof beyond the eye test that comes from watching highlight videos. Especially when Kane /also/ miscontrols passes, gives the ball away, misses 1v1s and sometimes doesn’t square the ball to unmarked teammates*. I noticed in your reply to someone else below that you brought up how Son and Dele’s issues with receiving long balls are hurting Kane’s stats in terms of assists (he has 6, btw, not 4–unless you are focusing only on the pl, anyway); the same argument can be made for our other three attacking players when they pass the ball to Kane and Kane doesn’t score, but I don’t see this being brought up.
I get that you’re trying to say we should exploit Kane’s long range passing and I agree. But I don’t think it’s right to call any of our players wasteful simply because a highlights video gives the impression that they are. I’m sure that if I went on YouTube right now and searched “Harry Kane is shit” a bunch of compilation videos that focus on all the times he’s missed clear cut chances would show up and make him look bad.
FWIW, while I appreciate that Kane is a fine playmaker, I much rather he focused on /scoring/. As excellent as Sonny is, there’s no one else in the club I trust more than Kane in front of goal.
*To be clear, I don’t really mind that he can be selfish with the ball. He’s a striker and that’s what strikers do, and it’s his responsibility more than anyone else’s to ensure the ball ends up in the back of the net, sooo.
They're not wasteful in general, but with these specific long balls from Kane, they are. These chances are not easy but at the same time they should do better than they are.
Assists for our other players aren't brought up because Kane is generally finishing all types of chances well, except for those that require a lot of pace, like whipped in crosses that are out of his range but would be reachable for someone like Son or Salah. I do agree that Kane can be a bit selfish, hence his assists generally come from longer balls where he doesn't have too much of a chance of scoring.
I also agree with you on the last point, Kane should be the goal scorer, not playmaker, I want to go back to the old Kane up front with Dele making late runs into the back post to get on the end Eriksen crosses.
And yes, also to your point about selfishness, I like that unlike some teams we don't try to walk it in all the time, its good to take shots when the opportunity presents itself.
That is pretty much my point.
As for your other point that everyone misses sitters, note that I didn't say they weren't allowed to miss a few. The point is that they miss too many. Also note that I didn't say they were all sitters, many of them require a lot of skill to execute, but again, they should be succeeding more than they are at the moment.
No one expects Dele to be as clinical as Kane, but right up until Kane and Dele were injured, these specific plays were some of our best scoring chances, and we've consistently missed them.