Manchester United should pounce on Harry Kane’s doubts to complete rebuild

Manchester United should do everything they can to exploit the question marks over Harry Kane‘s future to complete their rebuild under Ole Gunnar Solskjær.

The England captain and Manchester United target was talking with former Liverpool midfielder Jamie Redknapp in a Q&A session on Instagram, and admitted that his future could lie away from Tottenham.

Kane said that he would leave North London if he felt the club wasn’t progressing forward with an aim to win trophies, putting clubs around Europe on high alert.

Spurs have failed to win any major trophy since their League Cup triumph in 2008, in spite of making tremendous progress under Mauricio Pochettino.

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Pochettino transformed Spurs in several ways – promoting and nurturing talented youth players, placing an emphasis on proper scouting, and playing exciting attacking football.

Kane has now been a central cog for Tottenham since making his first-team breakthrough in the 2013/14 season. He won two successive Premier League Golden Boot awards in 2016 and 2017, besides numerous other individual honours. However, he will be severely disappointed with his lack of silverware.

With Tottenham struggling this season, Daniel Levy fired Pochettino and replaced him with Jose Mourinho, sending a message to top 6 rivals about Spurs’ ambitions.

Things haven’t gone according to plan though. For a Mourinho team, they have been uncharacteristically leaky in defence, and have struggled to score goals with Kane and Heung-min Son sidelined with injuries.

While Mourinho surely has lofty ambitions for the club, Kane must be considering his options after the 57-year-old’s poor start.

Meanwhile, Solskjær has managed to bring about a semblance of stability at Old Trafford after a terrible start to life as permanent manager.

The impact of new signings Bruno Fernandes and Odion Ighalo, along with the impressive form of players like Fred, Luke Shaw, Anthony Martial and Nemanja Matic has uplifted the club, before an untimely halt to the season due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Regardless, fans can be optimistic about the future while keeping in mind that there is still work to be done.

Midfield reinforcements are still needed, and Jack Grealish presents a very realistic option to target in the summer. Jadon Sancho remains incessantly linked, but his exorbitant fee will give Ed Woodward pause.

Despite Ighalo’s brilliant performances so far, Solskjær will need to sign a more long term option. The Nigerian is said to be considering his options with his loan deal from Shanghai Shenhua expiring at the end of the season, but he is 30 and can only be viewed as a temporary solution.

Kane would be perfect for the way Manchester United are trying to play under Solskjær. His link-up play is second to none among top-class strikers, and his lethal finishing could be devastating when he links up with Fernandes, Rashford, James and Martial.

He could be the final piece in the puzzle that can propel United to Europe’s elite once more. With a striker like Kane and a solid spine in midfield and defence, Solskjær can realistically aim to challenge for the league title next season.

In addition, Kane is English and relatively young at 26. This fits the profile that United have been scouting for since last summer. There are virtually no other strikers who can tick so many boxes for the Red Devils.

With Kane entering the peak years of his career, the appeal of a club with United’s history and ambitions for the future could be hard to ignore. Woodward should do everything to leverage that and sign him even if it costs in excess of £150 million.