Spring has arrived for Harry Kane and he looks to be relishing it well with Bayern Munich

The English striker is in the form of his life, with 17 goals and seven assists in 14 games this season, including three hat-tricks for the Bavarians.

Harry Kane has scored three hat-tricks for Bayern Munich in 14 matches. | Photo Credit: AP

Johnny Haynes, a former England captain, has a statue erected outside Craven Cottage, Fulham’s home.

The forward played for over 18 years at the club and – despite not winning a major trophy with the club – is considered its greatest-ever player, scoring over 175 goals for club and country.

Harry Kane, for the longest time, followed the same narrative – playing for Tottenham Hotspur, another club in London, eventually becoming its highest-ever goalscorer without winning a major title.

While he became England’s highest goalscorer as well, his performance remained untested under a different club at the highest level.

And that is where he has prospered this summer.

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Kane moved to a different country, Germany, joined Bayern Munich, and, with 17 goals and seven assists in 14 games, has made the No. 9 position his own finesse at the Allianz Arena.

He has three hat-tricks for Bayern Munich so far, including one in his first  Der Klassiker, becoming the first player to do so.

Revival as a centre-forward

Kane has donned multiple roles in the final third but has remained the most effective as a centre-forward (No. 9), playing as a fox-in-the-box and scoring equally well with his weaker foot and head.

In his 225 league goals since the 2014-15 season, he has scored only 26 goals from outside the box. He has scored 42 goals with his left foot and 41 goals through headers.

Kane started as an impact substitute early on at White Hart Lane, and under Mauricio Pochettino, in the 2014-15 season, he finally established himself as the No. 9, playing as the focal point in a 4-2-3-1 formation. 

But Pochettino’s exit saw him become a secondary striker, alongside Hueng-Min Son. 

Kane is Spurs’ all-time top goal-scorer after 12 full seasons at the club. | Photo Credit: AFP

Despite a lethal pairing with the South Korean, the propensity of being a centre-forward, along with the frequent change in managers and lack of silverware saw him fly out to Germany after a failed move to Manchester City.

And Kane returned to his prized crib of the No. 9 position immediately, filling the void of Robert Lewandowski.

Though Sadio Mane – in his own right, one of the best forwards in European football, who arrived from Liverpool last summer, fell way short of the expectations slated earlier from the Pole.

Lewandowski, in his first season at Bayern, scored 25 goals and assisted 13 more, finishing as the joint-second-highest goalscorer in the league.

Mane, on the other hand, finished with just 12 goals and six assists, with his goal tally almost less than half of what he had netted for Liverpool the season before (23).

In 14 matches so far, Kane’s goal contributions (17 goals, 7 assists) are already more than the Senegalese international, who left for Saudi Arabia’s Al Nassr in the last transfer window.

Choosing the German side would have been a cakewalk for Kane. In the last 10 years, the Bundesliga has had only one champion – Bayern Munich.

Someone for whom silverware (a major trophy) has eluded him all his life, the German club is not an oasis, it is an ocean at the end of a desert.

Towing the path of Keegan

Bundesliga has seen some exciting English youngsters grow, from Owen Hargreaves at Bayern to Jude Bellingham at Borussia Dortmund. But Kane, at 30, would be likened most to the former Liverpool forward Kevin Keegan.

Keegan, unlike, Kane had arrived in Germany after an illustrious career in England, winning eight major trophies, including the European Cup, later called the UEFA Champions League, in 1977.

His move to Hamburg SV was the then-record signing from England to Germany. So was Kane’s in 2023.

Despite struggling to score initially, Keegan rose to a hero’s status the following season, helping it win its first Bundesliga and fourth German first-division title in 1978-79.

His individual laurels also peaked there, as he won two consecutive Ballon d’Or trophies.

In the 1978-79 season, he had his best-ever goal tally in the German league, scoring 17 goals – a figure Kane has already reached this season, across all competitions.

Kane could have been likened to Haynes a few years ago. But his antics, with flashes of Keegan in the final third, in action for the German Juggernauts, only show spring has arrived for Kane.

And he is relishing it, one game at a time.