Reports: Real Madrid targeting Kane to replace Benzema

Remember how last week I wrote a whole dang article about how I wasn’t going to cover the Kane summer melodrama until something concrete happened? Well, that’s still true, I’m not and won’t. That said, I did give myself an out by hedging that when a reliable-ish source reports on something we’d keep you abreast. So I don’t feel especially bad about relaying this current news — multiple outlets, including Miguel Delaney in the Independent and Gary Jacob in the Times of London, in addition to umpteen less-reliable reports in Spain, are reporting that Real Madrid are interested in making a move to sign Harry Kane.

Kane is, I guess, Carlo Ancelotti’s top pick to replace Karim Benzema, who recently announced that he’s leaving Madrid to sign with a club in the Saudi Arabia league for an obscene amount of money. Madrid thinks that they can take advantage of Kane’s contract instability (his contract expires a year from now) and his unwillingness to extend at Tottenham.

Now, if we start with the premise that Spurs have no intention of selling Kane to another Premier League club but ARE willing to entertain a sale for the right price, then Real Madrid is about the best possible destination. Gary Jacob doesn’t mention any pricing, but Delaney does, saying that Levy would demand at minimum £100m and might go as high as £200m (which feels patently ridiculous). All the reporting has this in common, though — Real Madrid is not looking forward to the negotiations with Daniel Levy, and admit it will be difficult to come to an understanding. Madrid are also apparently spending more than £100m for Jude Bellingham this summer and want to go after Kylian Mbappe next year when his contract winds down, so really who the hell knows.

And of course there’s still the whole managerial and director of football saga at Tottenham that doesn’t appear to be much closer to a resolution, though that could change next week. That’s apparently central to Kane’s decision and the window doesn’t even open for another two weeks. But the Madrid interest does appear to be real. And if Kane decides that he does want to leave, then it’d definitely be more palatable to send him to Spain for a decent chunk of cash than to let him walk for free to Manchester United next summer.

There. That’s done. Now, get back to your Postecoglu prayer circle construction.