Kevin Phillips rueful over Harry Kane's challenge to English goal record
Phillips the last Englishman to be Premier League top goalscorer
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Your support makes all the difference.Being a member of Leicester City’s coaching staff, Kevin Phillips will be concentrating on their match at Turf Moor come Saturday, but just before kick-off he may just ask how the lunchtime match at St Mary’s went.
Neither Southampton nor Tottenham are in the relegation battle with Leicester, but Phillips has a personal interest in the fortunes of Spurs’ striker Harry Kane.
In 1999-2000 Kevin Phillips scored 30 goals for Sunderland to finish the Premier League’s leading goalscorer. Fifteen years later he remains the last Englishman to achieve this honour, but Kane’s sensational breakthrough season has put that distinction in peril.
Phillips is somewhat ambivalent about Kane’s pursuit. Last Sunday he was happy when Sergio Aguero scored to move on to 20 goals, but rueful when Kane caught up with the Argentine, scoring Spurs’ third goal at Newcastle.
“Of course, I’d love my record to stay for as long as possible, but I see it as sad really, if I am being honest,” said Phillips. “That my record as the last English player to win the Golden Boot has lasted 15 years – what does it say about our English strikers?”
Phillips, 41, who won the Sir Tom Finney award for lifetime achievement at the Football League Awards last weekend, added of Kane: “He has been outstanding, [especially with] the pressure at a big club like Tottenham. He has carried them this year, without his goals they may only have been mid-table.
“When I look at young English strikers coming through he is the future for English football – but the next Shearer, as people are talking? Let’s not get too carried away. Let’s see what happens.
“The season after I scored 30 goals I scored 18 goals in the Premier League and I was called a failure, which was harsh. If Harry was to beat me this season, next year he needs to score 15-20 [not to be called a failure]. But 18 goals now in any league is a success.”
Kane, though, is unlikely to rob Phillips of another record, the only English player to win the European Golden Boot. “When Messi and Ronaldo are scoring goals the way they are no one is going to beat that,” said Phillips cheerfully.
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HOT SHOTS - PREMIER LEAGUE TOP SCORERS
1999-2000 K Phillips (Sund/Eng) 30 goals
00-01 J F Hasselbaink (Chels/Neth) 23
01-02 T Henry (Ars/Fr) 24
02-03 R van Nistelrooy (MU/Neth) 25
03-04 Henry (Ars/Fr) 30
04-05 Henry (Ars/Fr) 25
05-06 Henry (Ars/Fr) 27
06-07 D Drogba (Chels/Iv C) 20
07-08 C Ronaldo (MU/Port) 31
08-09 N Anelka (Chels/Fr) 19
09-10 Drogba (Chels/Iv C) 29
10-11 D Berbatov (MU/Bul) & C Tevez (MC/Arg)20
11-12 R van Persie (Ars/Neth) 30
12-13 Van Persie (MU/Neth) 26
13-14 L Suarez (Liv/Urug) 31
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