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Harry Kane can be like Teddy Sheringham and play until he is 40

Harry Kane after Tottenham's final home game of the season - Gareth Southgate: Harry Kane can be like Teddy Sheringham and play until he is 40 - PA/John Walton
Harry Kane after Tottenham’s final home game of the season – Gareth Southgate: Harry Kane can be like Teddy Sheringham and play until he is 40 – PA/John Walton

Gareth Southgate believes Harry Kane can keep playing at the top for another decade after backing the Tottenham Hotspur striker to emulate Teddy Sheringham at the end of a season in which he has proven he is getting even better with age.

Former Spurs and England forward Sheringham played in the Premier League for West Ham United aged 40 and earned his final international cap aged 36.

Kane will celebrate his 30th birthday in July, but there has been evidence this season that England’s captain is somehow still improving. He could beat his highest-scoring league campaign by hitting a hat-trick against Leeds United in Sunday’s final game.

Should he net a brace, then Kane will become the first player ever to score 30-plus goals in two separate 38-game Premier League seasons.

Manchester United are expected to step up their pursuit of Kane once the season has finished and England manager Gareth Southgate believes his star man will stay at the top for a long time to come – wherever he is playing.

Karim Benzema is still playing for Real Madrid aged 35, while Barcelona’s Robert Lewandowski is a year younger and Southgate said: “I’d be thinking of a Sheringham type that wasn’t relying on speed to score goals or to have an impact on the game. He looked after himself very well and he was going strong at that sort of age. There’s no reason Harry won’t be able to do the same.”

Aside from his 28 goals and assuming he plays against Leeds, this will be the first time since 2015-16 that Kane will have appeared in every one of Tottenham’s 38 League games and he has now not suffered a significant injury for over three years.

Manchester City’s Erling Haaland collected his Footballer of the Year award this week, but, heading into the final weekend, Kane had scored a greater share of Tottenham’s goals (42.4 percent) than the Norwegian (38.7 percent) has for the League champions.

Kane’s goals have been worth 24 points to Spurs this season, which is only matched by Haaland, and his improvement is all the more impressive given that he has been made in a team that has been getting worse.

If Spurs remain in eighth place or below, it will be the Premier League’s lowest-ever finish by a club with a player who has scored more than 25 goals. Blackburn and Sunderland both finished seventh with Alan Shearer scoring 31 and Kevin Phillips hitting 30.

Kane will have scored in 26 different games this season should he net against Leeds, having already set a 38-game season League record by making it 25 matches against Brentford last weekend.

“He’s still performing at a fabulous level,” said Southgate. “With Harry, it’s the whole game, it’s not just the goals. It’s the quality of passing and the reliability of hold-up play as well. You get more than just a goalscorer.

“I don’t see any deterioration. If anything, physically, he has gotten better through the last two seasons. He has not had the injury problems. I know that’s a consequence of further hours of dedication to recovery and physical strength. He gets the rewards.

“There’s no secret to these things, no mystery. The more you work, the more dedicated you are…I was looking at Luka Modric. He’s played 63 games this season yet we’re talking about resting players. There’s a reason he got 165 caps. He never misses. He’s completely focused and completely dedicated. Harry will give himself the best chance of getting 100-plus caps and however many goals.”

Kane became England and Tottenham’s record goalscorer this season and yet, incredibly, has never been named Footballer of the Year or PFA Players’ Player of the Year – which Southgate believes is more a reflection of his club than the player.

Asked if Kane is taken for granted, Southgate said: “I don’t think we do. There have just been a couple of players who have had a special season in those moments. Often the club needs to win something that promotes the individual.

“I bet he’s been third or fourth almost every season. It’s just unfortunate from his point of view. But he’s got plenty of other individual accolades.”

Kane’s future will be one of the stories of summer, but, having gone through a similar period with the former Leyton Orient loanee – in 2021 when he attempted to engineer a move to Manchester City – Southgate has no fears over how it might impact his England form ahead of the European Championship qualifiers against Malta and North Macedonia.

“I think he loves being with us and I think he is enjoying leading the team,” said Southgate. “He likes that responsibility and it’s important we’ve got some older players who know their own game inside-out. Kyle Walker would be another one. What else can we give them, how else might we develop them? I think their leadership, their ownership of things is an area we can push them a bit more on.

“With the older players, there are different challenges we’ve got to give them to keep it refreshed and stimulating. I think they want that and I think they’re ready for that. We (the staff) should be leading, but they should be driving the team and I think that’s where we can push some of our players a bit more now.”

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