Is Tottenham striker Harry Kane better than Newcastle and England legend Alan Shearer?

Did anyone genuinely doubt that Harry Kane would beat Alan Shearer’s Premier League goalscoring record? Certainly not Shearer, who seemed certain it would go on Match Of The Day, after Kane had scored his fifth hat-trick of the season against Burnley.

Remarkably, he hit a sixth in the 5-2 demolition of Southampton, bringing his annual total to 39, in doing do besting his fellow England’s striker’s 36, set in 1995.

But although the record has now officially been broken, perhaps a more significant question remains: Is Harry Kane actually better than Alan Shearer?

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GOALSCORING RECORD

There are so many variables to crunch when building the perfect scoring machine. But allied to the multiple mental and physical aspects is the consistency required to deliver on a regular basis, season after season, while avoiding those much-fabled “goal droughts” which tend to kneecap most strikers.

Shearer passed the 20-goal mark seven times in the Premier League, something no other player has managed to do on more than five occasions. He also jointly holds the record for the most goals scored in a Premier League season with 34 and also hit more hat-tricks (11) in the competition than anyone else.

But aside from the post-Ibizan comedowns Kane seems to suffer every August, he is certainly matching Shearer, not to mention Europe’s other leading goal scorers. In 2017, Kane scored 56 times for club and country, more than Lionel Messi, Robert Lewandowski, Cristiano Ronaldo and Edinson Cavani.

Having said that, while it took Kane 125 games to reach 86 goals in the Premier League, five fewer than former Manchester United star Ruud van Nistelrooy, who is statistically third, Shearer did it in 110. The Newcastle United star retired when he was 35, which means that if Kane continues until the same age, he has a further 11 years to break his Premier League record of 260, with a required target of 15 per season until 2029.

PLAYING STYLES

The similarities between Shearer and Kane bear repeating. Cut from the archetypal, blood and thunder mould of centre-forward that British football occasionally still produces, rather than the fast and nimble likes of an Ian Wright or Marcus Rashford, Kane, similarly to Shearer, does many things very well, executing them consistently against any opponent.

However, few football fans, coaches or media pundits will claim to have seen Kane’s rise to the top coming. Indeed, it was not immediately obvious in which areas he might be considered world class and capable of equalling, let alone trumping, the aforementioned names. While Kane lacks blistering pace, he’s quick, strong, prolific with his head and both feet, while also being devastatingly clinical and satisfyingly explosive in his finishing. Not only that, Kane is, as Sean Dyche recently remarked, “awkward” to mark, with an exceptional range of passing.

CLUB CAREER

Again, there are similarities in Shearer and Kane’s club careers. Both had relatively inauspicious introductions to top-flight British football before bursting onto the club and international scenes and exhibiting unusual levels of loyalty to their home teams.

While Kane endured rather uneventful loan spells at Leyton Orient, Millwall, Norwich and Leicester, it was in the 1991 season that Shearer really hit the big time, more than two years after he became, at 17 years and 240 days, the youngest player to score a hat-trick in the top division of English football while with Southampton.

Many of Shearer’s record-breaking Premier League total were scored at Blackburn, where he won the title in 1994, but he also resisted multiple arguably more attractive opportunities to sign for boyhood club Newcastle United, where he played until retirement in 2006.

Likewise, since establishing himself as the national team’s leading marksmen, Kane has continuously played down rumours and speculation linking him with a move elsewhere. “My goal is to play my entire career only for Tottenham,” he said recently, amid supposed interest from Real Madrid. “There is something special about doing it for YOUR club,” as Shearer attests.

INTERNATIONAL CAREER

With Kane a relative novice at international level, there’s currently little comparison between him and Shearer. Both have captained their country and scored on their debuts – Shearer against France in 1992 and Kane against Lithuania barely more than a minute after coming on as a substitute at Wembley in March 2015 – but tangible success remains frustratingly elusive.

However, in 1994 Shearer was part of a team that fell narrowly short of greatness, losing a Wembley semi-final against Germany on penalties, having disposed of the likes of Spain and the Netherlands in a barnstorming, unforgettable tournament on home soil.

With four goals in nine appearances, one better than Shearer’s after the same number of games, Kane is on course to make his own mark for England, presuming Gareth Southgate can do something that proved beyond Roy Hodgson: find someone else to take corners.

GOAL CELEBRATION

Arguably the one area with room for improvement in Kane and Shearer’s game is the post-goal celebration. With so much time spent drilling their actual performance levels into sleek and complete shape, the immediate seconds after they’ve thumped in another chance have perhaps been deemed something of an afterthought.

Shearer’s one-arm aloft run around remains completely forgettable. Meanwhile, it seems Kane may have seen Robbie Keane’s Morris dancing cowboy jig one too many times coming through the ranks at Spurs and decided to keep it both simple and very boring, save for the occasional secret handshake.

VERDICT

From a purely practical standpoint, it now seems remarkably likely that Kane will one day beat Shearer’s Premier League goalscoring record. Although he’s suffered a number of injury problems, the Spurs star still claimed the Golden Boot in consecutive seasons. With at least another decade in the game and seemingly little desire to play abroad, he would be unlucky to miss as many games as Shearer, who believes multiple spells out cost him at least two seasons.

While there is little to choose between their skills and styles, Kane’s all-round game arguably gives him the slightest edge, with further time to improve. But as a man who demands so much from himself, Kane also understands he will be judged on trophies and success, which is far from guaranteed either at club or country level. Either way, he’s heading in the right direction and Shearer knows it.