the times | Wednesday October 14 2020 2GM 63
Sport
The remarkable 6-1 victory over
Manchester United this month led to
more praise for Kane as Gary Neville,
the former United defender
commentating for Sky Sports, simply
said: “He just looks so good,” after a
piece of quick thinking from a free
kick helped Kane assist Son for Spurs’
second. It led to more discussions asOn September 20, after José
Mourinho had watched Son Heung-
min score four goals in a 5-2 victory
over Southampton, it was Harry
Kane, his captain, who appeared on
his Instagram feed before the South
Korea international.
Mourinho, the Tottenham Hotspur
head coach, captioned the image:
“Top players are team players.” Kane,
27, had provided all four assists for
Son before getting on the scoresheet
in the 82nd minute — a reflection of
Kane’s growing influence on the team
as a creator as well as a goalscorer.
“Harry Kane, in my opinion,
changed the game,” Mourinho said.
“His movement was tremendous; his
Kane reaching new level for Spurs as both goalscorer and creator
link play was absolutely incredible
and he allowed Sonny to play in a
different position on the pitch.”
Kane was the sixth-highest
goalscorer in the Premier League last
season with 18 goals and two assists in
29 appearances, so why should he
make it on to a list of the top ten
players in the division? Last season
was difficult for Spurs, finishing sixth
with 61 goals scored, the fewest of the
top six. Kane was also injured for
three months with those above him in
the scoring charts playing between
four and nine games more.
Kane had the coronavirus
lockdown to recover and is now a key
component of Mourinho’s improving
side. He has already scored three
goals in four Premier League
appearances and provided six assists.
That is more assists than Kane has
made in any other entire Premier
League season apart from 2016-17,
when he provided seven assists in 30
appearances.to how he is developing as a creator
but Kane insisted Son’s clinical
finishing highlighted a skill that he
has always had.
“Obviously, Sonny is doing great
to finish the chances off — it
has always probably been
there but I think we’ve just
taken advantage and been
more ruthless when the
chances come,” Kane
said.
Opta touch maps
confirm Kane’s viewpoint
and actually illustrate the
striker spending more time
in attacking areas closer to
goal, rather than dropping
back as a provider. Over the
course of the 2019-20
season, Kane spent
7.08 per cent of games
in the central attackingquadrant, and 9.47 per cent in the
No 10 role.
So far this season he has spent 9.38
per cent of games in the central
attacking quadrant, and 14.37 per cent
and 15.62 per cent in the No 10 role
and at left wing respectively.
The statistics point to exactly what
Mourinho claimed he could offer
Kane in Amazon’s All or Nothing
documentary. “The reality is that my
dimension is universal and by being
with me I think I can help you to
[explode],” Mourinho said.
“That’s my aim,” Kane replied.
“When you’re at a club like
Tottenham, of course we’ve done well
and personally I’ve done well. But I
want to be [Cristiano] Ronaldo and
[Lionel] Messi.”Kane is adding assists to
his game this seasonMolly Hudson
9
premier league’s top ten
Harry
Kane
How we calculated our list
We asked our main football writers,
11 in all, to give us a list of their top
ten footballers in the Premier
League at the moment. We also
asked Opta to give us their list
based on statistics.
From these 12 lists we used a
weighted voting system (11 for
the first place, nine for the
second, eight for the third and
so on downwards) to compile
an overall definitive list.online
Keep up with our countdown of the best
players in the Premier League at
thetimes.co.uk/sportCristiano Ronaldo has become the
latest high-profile footballer to test
positive for Covid-19. The Portuguese
Football Federation announced yester-
day that Ronaldo had been released
from the national squad after contract-
ing the virus.
It said that the Juventus forward, 35,
would not be available for Portugal’s
Nations League match against Sweden
tonight. “He is doing well, without
symptoms, and in isolation,” the state-
ment read. “Following the positive case,
the remaining players underwent new
tests this Tuesday morning, all with a
negative result, and are available to
[head coach] Fernando Santos for
training this afternoon.”
Giorgio Chiellini, the Juventus
defender, said that Ronaldo was “fine
and sunbathing” yesterday. Hours
before testing positive, Ronaldo had
taken a picture of himself and his Por-
tuguese team-mates at a team meal and
posted it on social media. Last week two
of his team-mates, the goalkeeper An-
thony Lopes and defender José Fonte,
returned positive tests, forcing them
out of the Nations League fixtures.
The news that Ronaldo has contract-
ed the virus is likely to cause alarm in
the Spain and France squads since
Ronaldo played in Portugal’s games
against the two nations last week.
Eduardo Camavinga, the France
Ronaldo was said
to be “fine and
sunbathing”Ronaldo has
to self-isolate
after positive
test for Covid
midfielder, swapped shirts with
Ronaldo after their 0-0 draw in Paris.
The 17-year-old Rennes player posted a
picture of the shirt on Snapchat with
the caption: “I won’t wash it!” The
French federation said the squad’s tests
had all come back negative yesterday.
After Portugal’s goalless draw against
Spain last week, Ronaldo embraced and
took pictures with Sergio Ramos, his
former Real Madrid team-mate, in the
Portugal dressing room.
Italian law dictates that asympto-
matic carriers of the disease have to
self-isolate for “at least ten days”. Those
who have tested positive will be
required to show a negative test result
before being allowed to leave isolation.
Ronaldo, the five-times Ballon d’Or
winner, is set to miss Juventus’s next
two matches, against Crotone in Serie
A on Saturday and Dynamo Kiev in the
Champions League on Tuesday. After
those two games, Juventus play Verona
on October 25 before facing Barcelona
in Turin in the Champions League
three days later.
As is the case in many European
countries, Italy is experiencing a
second wave of coronavirus cases and
football clubs have been affected.
The test result reopens the contro-
versy over Ronaldo’s departure from
Turin for the Portugal training camp,
which was, according to local health
authorities in the Piedmont region, a
violation of the virus protocol. Ron-
aldo and other Juventus stars left to join
up with their national teams despite the
team being in isolation after two staff
members tested positive for the virus.
More than 30 Serie A players are self-
isolating after testing positive for the
virus. AC Milan striker Zlatan Ibrahim-
ovic contracted the virus last month but
returned to training this week.Paul Hirst
T
homas Partey’s
desire to be seen as
an octopus will be
welcomed at Arsenal,
where they have searched
for just that type of rangy
midfielder to pinch ballssince Patrick Vieira left
the club 15 years ago
(Gary Jacob writes).
In Spain, Partey’s style
was likened to an octopus
when he was on loan at
Almería, and he had a
tattoo of the invertebrate
put on his right arm.
Arsenal are hopeful that
he will be as combative
and dynamic in midfield
as Vieira, who on his first
day in training in 1996
was labelled a “giant
spider, all arms and legs”by the captain Tony
Adams.
“If I would be an
animal, I would be an
octopus,” Partey, 27, said.
“They called me the
octopus because I stole a
lot of balls.”
Partey, who will have
Thomas on his jersey
despite his surname’s
potential for wordplay,
used to run up mountains
with his father, Jacob, to
improve his stamina.
“We would be jumping,heading leaves and all
those things,” the
Ghanaian said. “It was
difficult [arriving in
Spain] as it was cold and I
was not used to that. I
had to change my mind,
change my mentality, my
way of thinking.”
Now he must adapt to
England.Arsenal’s
‘octopus’
happy to do
the leg work
Arsenal recruit Partey dons
his new kit. Inset, the
midfielder’s arm bears a
tattoo of an octopus£45m
Partey’s fee — Arsenal
paid more only for Nicolas
Pépé (£72m), Pierre-
Emerick Aubameyang
(£57m) and Alexandre
Lacazette (£48m)2
Ghana player-of-the-year
awards (2018 and 2019) —
he was in the 2018 African
team of the year with
Aubameyang,
Mohamed Salah and
Sadio ManéSTUART MACFARLANE/ARSENAL FC VIA GETTY IMAGES