clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Harry Kane is better than Roberto Soldado, according to Tim Sherwood

Start playing the HurriKane, says the former Tottenham manager

Paul Gilham

The Cartilage Free Captain writers have been pretty adamant for a while that Harry Kane is deserving of a start in the Premier League. Looks like we're not the only ones. Former Spurs manager-turned-pundit Tim Sherwood is backing HurriKane over Roberto Soldadocalling him "better."

"Harry Kane is better than Roberto Soldado... I chose Kane last year as he was consistently performing better in training.

[Soldado] needs to start producing on the field and we can't make excuses for him any more. He should be settled in at the club after living here for over a year."

A couple of things here, since I can already hear screams of frustration alongside murmurs of agreement from the commentariat on this one. First, it's Tim Sherwood. Tim Sherwood is a crazy person who is desperately trying to retcon his brief tenure at Spurs into something palatable enough for him to land another job in the Premiership. We should take anything that Tim Sherwood says with a huge grain of salt, since he has a proven track record of bad ideas and inflammatory media invective.

Second, this is a very odd time for Sherwood to be mouthing off about Roberto Soldado, considering he actually had a pretty good match on Saturday. Sure, he missed a penalty and had a couple of shots blocked by Joe Hart, but full credit where it's due: Roberto linked play better than Adebayor, had a couple of nice attempts on goal, and played pretty well against the second best team in England. These comments, in the context of the City match, are pretty harsh.

But that said, at this point it's kind of hard to say Sherwood is entirely wrong. Statistically, Harry Kane has had a fantastic season in limited minutes for Spurs. He has looked good in the opportunities he's had with the team, and many, including myself, are itching to see what Kane can do alone up top. Looking at Soldado's history, he hasn't performed nearly well enough in the matches in which he's featured and there's a strong argument that Kane deserves to get his chance before Roberto gets another one, even if I'm not quite ready to declare Kane "better."

I won't dump on Soldado, since he's a Spurs player who's coming off a good performance in a difficult match. But strikers are supposed to score, and Soldado has done everything well except that part. If Kane can do what Roberto can do and actually put the ball in the back of the net, then it's a little tough to say that Tim Sherwood's opinion is entirely crazy.