Comment: Would Harry Kane have beaten Alan Shearer’s record if he had stayed at Tottenham?

The summer transfer window in England was marked by the question of whether one of the Premier League’s biggest stars, Harry Kane, would try to break Alan Shearer’s goalscoring record or leave for Bayern Munich. We now know the reality, but how would the battle at the top of the historical stats have gone had he stayed in the Isles?

The transfer saga has gripped football all summer

In the summer transfer window, the transfer of star players to Saudi Arabia in particular filled the pages of the media. Yet the biggest transfers happened in the British Isles, with seven of the ten biggest transfers of the summer happening at Premier League clubs.

Perhaps the most talked about in the islands was long-time Tottenham and Albion national team mainstay Harry Kane. The speculation surrounding his transfer to Bayern Munich was carried through the football environment practically all summer.

The whole football world was waiting to see what path the England captain would choose. A continuation at Tottenham and an attempt to break the historical record? Or a move to a new environment and a title challenge?

Harry Kane faced a difficult decision. To break the record or fight for the title?

As we now know, the 30-year-old striker decided to leave White Hart Lane and head to Bavaria. But the decision was certainly not an easy one. Kane spent a total of 19 years at Tottenham, with several of those years in youth football on loan. It was practically only from the 2013/2014 season that he became a regular A team player.

In those eleven seasons he earned his position as one of the biggest offensive threats of the entire Premier League. After all, last season he surpassed the legendary Wayne Rooney in the historical table of scorers of the highest English competition by five goals, who held the second place with 208 goals.

He was 47 goals behind Alan Shearer, who scored 260 goals for Blackburn and Newcastle. Do you think the vision of being the all-time top scorer in the history of the most prestigious league competition will be the driving force for him to stay at Tottenham? No way.

The desire for titles was stronger. After all, in those eleven long seasons with Tottenham he had only managed to win one ‘trophy’, the pre-season tournament AUDI Cup in Munich. And that earned him rather general derision from the fans on the islands.

The closest he came to the title was in the 2018/2019 season, when he was just one game away from triumphing in the Champions League. However, in the then final played at the Wanda Metropolitano, his team fell short to Liverpool and he was left without a trophy once again.

It was competing in the European Cup that may have been the factor that helped his decision. Tottenham finished as high as eighth in the Premier League last season, leaving them without a European Cup challenge.

Although Tottenham remained steadfast and fought for a long time to keep their biggest star, around whom, apart from Bayern, Real Madrid were also circling. Eventually, Daniel Levy agreed to a €100 million deal and Kane moved to Germany.

Would he have become the top scorer in Premier League history had he stayed?

But would Shearer have maintained his record if Kane had stayed at Tottenham? Given the fact that he has consistently maintained a goalscoring average of over twenty goals for the last nine seasons, it would only be a matter of time.

Last season he even experienced an impressive thirty goals in the league alone as part of his individual stats. Thus, considering the number of goals he has scored in the last two years, statistically it would only take him two seasons to become the top scorer in league history.

And Shearer knows it. “If Harry wants to join Bayern, I’ll drive him there myself in my own car,” he wrote in an article for The Athletic before the star’s transfer. “Anything to protect my record,” he said, aware of his teammate’s shooting qualities.

Of course, a more serious injury could come into play, but that has so far eluded the star cannonballer. Even at 30 years of age, Kane is still in great physical shape and it is quite likely that he would be able to play at a similar level for a few more years.

Just to recap, Shearer’s 260 Premier League goals have come from 441 games in the competition. With the last one coming a few months before his 36th birthday, we’ll see what the future holds. Maybe we’ll see Kane in the jersey of a some Premier League team.

Source: Wikipedia, Livesport