Paul Merson: 'Harry Kane will not want to play under Jose Mourinho'

By Barney Corkhill, Editor | 05 April 2020

Former Arsenal midfielder Paul Merson believes that Jose Mourinho's playing style could convince Harry Kane to leave Tottenham Hotspur.

Former Arsenal midfielder Paul Merson has claimed that Harry Kane will not want to play under Jose Mourinho if the Tottenham Hotspur manager reverts to his former style.

Kane cast doubt over his long-term future in North London earlier this week when he insisted that he would not stay at the club if he felt that they were no longer making progress towards silverware.

However, Merson also believes that Mourinho's style of play will factor into Kane's thinking if Tottenham's attacking chances start dwindling.

"If Harry Kane wants to win stuff, he may have to leave Tottenham. Will Kane get six or seven chances a game playing the way Jose Mourinho does? I don't think so. For me that's what he needs to weigh up," Merson told Sky Sports News.

"He loves scoring goals, he wants to play for an attacking team, but I don't see that happening next season. Kane will be looking at Mourinho's history, and mark my words, next year, or whenever football begins again, Mourinho's playing style will be different. Spurs won't be letting in two or three goals per game, that's for sure. Jose will be making sure he gets that right.

"So far at Spurs it's been gung-ho, with the 3-2s, your 5-2s, 4-3s, but that isn't Mourinho deep down. And what that means is that Harry Kane won't be getting five chances a game any longer, and he will have to weigh that up because he loves scoring goals. I don't think Kane will want to be in a team where he is getting 10 goals a season, even if Spurs are further up the league.

"How has Jose Mourinho managed to play with big-name strikers before? The likes of Didier Drogba at Chelsea and Zlatan Ibrahimovic at Manchester United were focal point players, where you drop the ball into them and they have players running off them. Harry Kane doesn't want to be that.

"Kane wants to get involved in a different way, get down the channels, drop short and shoot. He's an intelligent footballer, and I don't think he will want to be a focal point player. He also has to think whether he wants to become the top Premier League goalscorer of all time. I don't see that happening if he stays at Tottenham under Mourinho. He's on 136 at the age of 26, with Alan Shearer on 260.

"He has to score at least 50 goals in the next two seasons to stand a chance of reaching that, because he isn't reaching those numbers in his 30s - football isn't like that anymore. I don't see him doing that with Mourinho as manager. He needs to leave himself with an average of 10 to 15 goals a season in his early 30s."

Real Madrid and Manchester City are reportedly locked in a £150m battle for Kane, while Manchester United are also thought to be interested.