Report: Harry Kane top target for United this summer

Look, I’m not going to sugarcoat it, today’s been kind of a s—t day, both professionally and for football reasons. There’s not a ton of good news to write about, so let’s instead purposefully wallow in the mud and talk about a Daily Mail article. Why? Because sometimes the only way to go up is to hit rock bottom.

According to Sami Mockbel, Harry Kane is a top target for Manchester United in the summer transfer window. There, I said it. Now, let’s get the IT’S THE MAIL caveat out of the way now and talk about why this is extremely plausible.

First, it’s nonsense because readers should very rarely take something written in the Mail as gospel, even if it’s written by Mockbel, who is one of the few reporters there I trust with any regularity. There’s your caveat. You can choose to believe it or not.

But is it plausible? …Yeah, I suppose it is. I know I’m on record as saying that Daniel Levy would not consider selling his homegrown superstar inside the Premier League, but is that really true? Because I can absolutely see a scenario where United, a club that historically had much more money than sense, could be compelled to spend £100m on Harry Kane with one year left on his contract. They’ve already spent big money on post-peak players like Robin Van Persie and Cristiano Ronaldo. Heck, they spent £100m this summer on Antony! I think there’s a good chance Levy would be more likely to sell Kane abroad — to Bayern, say, or Madrid — for less than that, but it begs the question of whether Harry would want to go if it means giving up a chance to catch Alan Shearer.

The giant anvil hanging over everyone’s head is Kane’s contract extension at Spurs. There still aren’t any indications on which way Kane will go here, but based on current evidence it’s hard to make a compelling case that he should be Tottenham’s Totti when things are starting to spiral out of control and there’s a good chance another “painful rebuild” is coming. I’ve said it before but I can’t see a scenario where Spurs let him walk for free in the summer of 2024. He’ll either be here forever, or he’ll leave this summer. It’s either or.

I like Harry Kane. I especially like all the goals he scores for Spurs. It would be extremely traumatic to lose him to Manchester United, especially the summer after Arsenal (ostensibly) wins the Premier League. But I’m getting to the point where I’m ready to sanction selling him to United, both for his sake and for the money that Spurs can invest back into the club to start something new.