Will Harry Kane turn his back on Tottenham?

Tottenham’s talisman wants to leave in the search of silverware, but the club he has given so much to has no intention of letting him go

Could Harry Kane be about to turn his back on Tottenham? (POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

The season might be nearly over but the rumour mill over the summer's biggest transfer story is only just beginning.

Harry Kane wants to leave Tottenham Hotspur - he has told them so - with Premier League rivals Manchester City, United and Chelsea all understood to be interested in the England captain this offseason.

Why wouldn’t they be? With 165 Premier League goals and counting, Kane is already one of the great goal-getters of his generation. What’s so lacking is the silverware to go with the scoring.

Spurs, for their part, have no intention of letting Kane go with chairman Daniel Levy resolute in his position that his best player and club talisman won't be sold at any price.

What's now left is a stand off between the club and their most-prized asset.

Kane appears to know where he would like to be playing next season judging by his answer when asked which player he would most like to play with.

"De Bruyne for sure," he told Gary Neville on The Overlap podcast. "When I watch [Kevin] De Bruyne play he's a special, special player and some of the balls I see him put in for City are just a striker's dream if I'm honest.

"He's an outstanding player with the ball, off the ball, pressing, but his delivery is as good as I've ever seen."

Outside of actually explicitly saying so it doesn't get much clearer to see that the best goalscorer in England would quite like to ply his trade for the country's best team.

As ever it is not as simple as that though with the six-year contract Kane signed back in 2018 still having three years left to run. That leaves him with precious little leverage over a club he undoubtedly loves and a chairman so notoriously stubborn in such scenarios.

The finances required don’t help either with Levy set to demand well in excess of £100m for his star man. With the much younger Erling Haaland and even Kylian Mbappe potentially on the market that is an awfully large sum to commit to a player who will turn 28 before the start of next term.

Paris Saint-Germain, one of the few clubs who do have that sort of money, and former boss Mauricio Pochettino are known to be keen on him too, but Kane himself wants to stay in the Premier League if he can as he attempts to hunt down Alan Shearer's all-time scoring record.

Currently 90 behind the Blackburn and Newcastle legend's mark, asked what could stop him beating the record, he added: "I guess injuries would be the biggest thing. Obviously I've had injuries, ankle injuries, and I haven't had anything that's kept me out for months and months touch wood.

"I guess for me I think injuries would be the biggest thing. Of course there's always the option of maybe moving abroad one day but I don't think that really interests me in the near future.

"I feel like I've got a good seven or eight years at the top when you look kind of the Messis, Ronaldos ... your Ibrahimovics all kind of getting better as reach their early thirties."

While individual records are always welcome it is the team prizes that Kane desires the most.

He is yet to win a trophy in his career with Tottenham despite doing all he could himself to claim them with the 2016 title race, under Pochettino, the closest he has come to date.

"I feel like it was a big opportunity for us," he added. "We had a title race for Leicester obviously, we didn't quite get there the season after with the title race with Chelsea.

"Season after that we get to that Champions League final so we were in a real good place. Of course we didn't win anything and we couldn't quite get over the line but I feel like we were in a real good place with the team.

"For one reason or another we didn't quite do what we needed to do and kind of where we're at now I feel like we're kind of at a rebuild stage again if I'm honest.

"It's disappointing, I feel like the opportunity was definitely there. I'm not going to say it's not there anymore of course, one or two good players can take the team over the line with Liverpool and City and teams like that.

"But for sure I feel like it was an opportunity missed for the club to do something special."

It's that something special that Kane, at 27 and entering the back nine of his career, is now searching for.

A team like Manchester City would undoubtedly give him as good a chance as any at it. Time will tell whether Tottenham will allow him to try and take it.