Tottenham's season without Harry Kane simulated on Football Manager | OneFootball

Highlights

The day has seemingly finally arrived, after over a decade in the first team and countless transfer sagas, it appears Harry Kane is on his way out of Tottenham.

Kane has been at the club since 2004 and made his debut for the club in a 0-0 Europa League qualifying match against Hearts on the 25th of August 2011. After a few Europa League appearances, including his first Tottenham goal against Shamrock Rovers, Kane was sent out on loan for much of the next two seasons before really making the striker spot his own in the 2014/15 season. Since then, he hasn’t looked back as he helped transform Spurs from a team that occasionally flirted with the Champions League places to a relative mainstay for many seasons.

During his time at the club, Kane has amassed a sensational 280 goals in 435 games and last season he overtook Jimmy Greaves to become the club’s all-time top scorer. He has also finished as the Premier League top scorer on three occasions along with moving to second place in the all-time Premier League scorer charts, now just 47 goals behind Alan Shearer.

Perhaps his biggest achievement, though, was managing 30 league goals last season in an upper mid-table Spurs side who had a nightmarish campaign in comparison to recent years.

Now, though, after years of appearing to be on the verge of joining the likes of Manchester United or Manchester City or perhaps even Real Madrid, Bayern Munich are the club finally signing the England captain.

Harry Kane to Bayern Munich

After a lengthy transfer saga, Daniel Levy has finally been convinced to part with the 30-year-old who has just one year remaining on his current contract in a deal worth a reported £86.4m; a club record fee for Bayern.

Even with the bid accepted, it did appear for much of yesterday that Kane would remain with Spurs as he had been reportedly enjoying life under new manager Ange Postecoglou, and he had promised he would remain at the club if his future was not resolved before the club’s season opener against Brentford on Sunday.

However, after further positive talks with Bayern overnight, Kane finally decided that the pull of a fresh challenge in Germany was too much and this morning he was given permission to fly to Bavaria to complete the move.

Much has been made of Kane’s lack of trophies in his career as he has failed to win anything with England or Tottenham, despite his best efforts, and by moving to the German club, he should be competing for the top prizes in European football. At the very least, he should win a Bundesliga given the German giants have now won the league 11 years in a row. If the transfer goes through today, he will even have a chance to win silverware on his opening day as Bayern compete against RB Leipzig in the German Super Cup tomorrow night.

So, what will happen to Tottenham now? Can Postecoglou’s exciting attacking football and signings like James Maddison keep them in the hunt for European places, or will they slip down the table without their talisman? Well, there’s no better way to answer this than by running a test on Football Manager.

Football Manager simulates Spurs without Harry Kane

After playing a rather dull and defensive five back formation under Antonio Conte for much of last season before exploding into a fiery wreck, Postecoglou has totally revamped the football and reverted to a more traditional 4-3-3 formation.

Up top, in the absence of Kane, Postecoglou has gone for a front three of Son Heung-min, Richarlison, and Dejan Kulusevski, but in midfield, star signing Maddison has been left out. Instead, the midfield is made up of a trio of Yves Bissouma, Rodrigo Bentancur, and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, who acts as the defensive pivot.

So, a new era beckons for Spurs, can Postecoglou lead them back to the Champions League? Well, no, he gets sacked in December after losing the faith of the board.

Now the question is will Spurs remain with their new-found attacking football, well, no. In a rather baffling decision, Levy decides to rehire Conte even despite his explosive exit last season and guess what, Spurs revert to a five-back formation. Actually, more of a seven at the back as the five defenders is fortified with two defensive midfielders.

Coming into the side under Conte is Maddison as a right-winger and January signing Victor Lindelof. Conte has also swapped Kulusevski and Richarlison with the Brazilian moving out-wide and the Swede taking centre stage up top, leaving no space for Son.

Fortunately for Spurs, the managerial change did stop the rot as the north London club managed to recover enough to achieve a seventh-place finish meaning Europa Conference League football for the following season.

Bizarrely, a rejuvenated Sean Dyche led Everton to a fifth-place finish on 71 points and Erik ten Hag’s United only finished in eighth leading to the Dutchman’s sacking upon the conclusion of the season.

As is expected really, City won the league by quite a margin with Liverpool, Arsenal, and Chelsea rounding out the Champions League spaces.

At the foot of the table, Sheffield United were the only newly promoted side to survive as Burnley and Luton finished 19th and 20th respectively. The latter managed just 16 points as they scarcely avoided Derby County’s record of just 11 points.

How did Kane do at Bayern Munich?

Over in mainland Europe, how did Kane perform then? Well, he finally put an end to his trophy drought as Bayern continued their dominance in Germany by claiming a ridiculous 12th straight Bundesliga title.

In terms of his personal statistics, the Englishman managed 17 goals and five assists in 25 appearances along with a very respectable average match rating of 7.40. This also included six Player of the Match awards. In the Champions League, however, Bayern were much less successful as they fell as early as the round of 16 stage.

There you have it, if Kane’s transfer to Bayern finally goes through then he’ll win himself his first career trophy. At the other end of the spectrum, it appears that Spurs fans don’t have much to look forward to as Postecoglou’s attacking revolution looks set to come to a swift end before a return to the dark ages under Conte round out a deeply underwhelming season.