Former England defender Stuart Pearce thinks certain Premier League teams are finding ways of dealing with Harry Kane.
The Tottenham striker won the Golden Boot at the World Cup for England as the national team reached the semi-finals stages of the tournament.
And the 25-year-old has scored two goals in the first four matches of the new Premier League season – but Pearce hasn’t been impressed with his overall performances.
“Yeah, I did in the summer, I’m realistic enough to know that winning the golden boot at a World Cup, that is special, make no mistake about that,” Pearce said .
“But I think his performances over the seven games were OK and the longer the tournament went on, the more his performances diminished in many ways.
“I don’t know if we need to get more help to him on the pitch because he’s going to be England’s centre-forward for the next however many years because of the character he is, the person he is there’s no doubt.
“If he doesn’t score the goals for England I would worry about where we’re going to go as a national team.
“I see it as two-fold with Harry. There’s a new-found respect for him and that means defenders are on high alert, which will nullify him in some ways.
“And secondly, when you play against Tottenham now, because people respect them as one of the big six, they defend a lot deeper and there’s less room. I don’t think that suits Dele Alli or Harry Kane.
“We set up teams against them at West Ham last year and we felt if you pushed up and left space for those two, they’re going to hurt us but bank up behind the ball and play on the counter-attack and they found it very difficult to break any shackles that we’d put on them. They’re getting that now at Tottenham, Harry especially.”
Kane scored 30 Premier League goals last season and bagged another seven in the Champions League.