FPL tips: Harry Kane’s underlying data hints at a player who is still able

Tottenham might look like a team in freefall, but the data shows that their star man is still turning in impressive performances despite not being at his best.

Harry Kane has endured a painful campaign by his own high standards, with just seven league goals to his name and the season well past the halfway stage.

However, according to Threat – a metric introduced by the FPL to measure the quality of the chances a player enjoys in front of goal, with a score of around 100 usually accounting for a goal’s worth of chances – Kane is still very much able.

Harry pain

The England striker could not have put in a much better all-round performance than he did last season – in 2020-21, he scored 23 goals and managed 14 FPL assists.

This season he has yet to break the 100-point barrier, while Spurs’ form looks similarly bleak.

The north London side have lost four of their last five games, scoring five and conceding 10 in that period – their top four hopes have been dented as a result.

But all is not lost, at least according to the underlying data – Kane has scored 345 Threat in his last six games, averaging more than 57 per game compared with just 40 per game during the rest of the season.

In that recent period the 28-year-old has been excellent value for the three goals he has managed, while his season total of more than 1,000 Threat suggests his performances have warranted a few more goals than have materialised.

Particularly impressive is the fact that the £12.2m FPL asset scored more than 100 Threat in two of his last six games, doing so against Leicester in GW22, returning 11 FPL points, and in GW25 against Wolves.

While he failed to score against Wolves he went on to knock in a brace against Manchester City the next week as Spurs registered a shock 3-2 win at the Etihad.

That result will act as a sharp reminder to FPL managers and Premier League managers alike that Kane has the ability to turn in a world class performance at any moment, and goes some way to explaining why 13 per cent of FPL bosses still have him in their squad.

Meanwhile Spurs face Leeds, Everton and Manchester United next in what may well prove to be the defining period of their season – if the Kane that dominated City shows his face, don’t be surprised to see him become an FPL must-have once again.