Harry Kane must leave if Tottenham can’t win trophies, says ex-Spurs star

Nicholas Hughes

• Updated: 23 May 2023 08:40 CDT
• 2 min read

Harry Kane should be looking to leave Tottenham if the club continue to fail to challenge for silverware, believes former Spurs striker Jermain Defoe.

Kane has had one of his best seasons from a personal point of view with 17 goals and 13 assists in the league, the latter by far a career-high number.

But Spurs have failed to follow the form of their star man as they currently sit sixth on the Premier League table and were bundled out of the Europa League in the Round of 16.

Defoe is not the first ex-Tottenham player to suggest Kane should leave for the betterment of his career, with Jonathan Woodgate in January saying the Englishman should go to Real Madrid if the opportunity came.

Currently plying his trade at Scottish champions Rangers, Defoe told talkSPORT that won’t be good enough to keep the No.10 at the club as the 27-year-old eyes the biggest prizes in world football.

“You have to win and bring silverware, otherwise it’s not good enough,” he said,

“When you actually achieve that and the feeling you get from that, wow man. I wish I had that earlier in my career.

“If Harry Kane wants that and wants to win trophies then it looks like he has to go.”

Harry Kane’s stats in 2020/21

Spurs haven’t won a trophy since the League Cup in 2008, but they have an opportunity to end the draught in the final of the same competition to be played against Manchester City at the end of April.

That looms as the last opportunity for Jose Mourinho’s men to lift silverware this season with the side also out of the FA Cup.

Tottenham were within a chance of lifting the Premier League title in the 2015/16 season but a late-season collapse saw them not only beaten to the title by Leicester City, but overtaken into second by bitter rivals Arsenal.

They managed a second-placed finish behind Chelsea the season after that but have not come close since, and are at risk of missing out on the top four for the second season in a row.

Kane has been linked with the likes of Manchester United and Real Madrid down the years and admitted in March last year that he wouldn’t stay at the club “for the sake of it” if there were no signs of development.

The England captain insists that his mind is fully focused on finishing the season with the Lilywhites ahead of the Euros in the summer, but beyond that, “we’ll see where we go from there”.