What a great few years Harry Kane has had: from a relative unknown to a national hero, after leading England to their best World Cup performance in decades and becoming only our second ever Golden Boot winner in the process. Add to this his two Premier League Golden Boot awards in the past 4 seasons, as well as finishing runner-up on the other two occasions, and it seems difficult to form an argument against Kane being an ever present in all FPL players teams. However, is this theory backed up by the stats and are there other factors to consider? Lets take a look.
What Do The Stats Say?
To start off reviewing the positive side of things, Kane’s underlying attacking numbers are excellent and only improving year on year. He recorded career season highs in several key areas including having a shot from inside the box every 25.3 minutes – a huge improvement on the 37.2 minutes in the preceding campaign. However he missed 18 big chances in the 17/18 season compared with 10 in 16/17 and so despite the improved shooting numbers his minutes per goal rate worsened from 87.3 to 102.8. This isn’t much of a real concern as 102.8 minutes per goal is still excellent and the decrease can be mitigated by the fact that he benefitted from 5 penalties in 16/17 compared to just 2 in 17/18.
One area where his form did drop off last season though was his chance creation. In 16/17 he created a chance every 62 minutes compared to every 93 minutes in 17/18 and this resulted in the number of assists he provided decreasing from 7 to just 2 – a very poor return for a striker in a top 6 side with Sergio Aguero, Roberto Firmino, Romelu Lukaku, Alexandre Lacazette and Alvaro Morata all recording 5+ assists in the 17/18 season. It remains to be seen if this was just a blip, but it would certainly be welcomed by FPL managers trusting in Kane if he can again reach the creation levels he obtained in 16/17.
Injury Concerns?
Kane is certainly not an injury prone player but one thing of concern, in my opinion, is his recovery from the ankle injury sustained in the latter stages of the previous campaign. Since returning from the injury earlier than originally anticipated Kane has continued to score goals with his usual consistency in both the final Premier League games of the 17/18 season and of course at the World Cup. However the attacking numbers across this period are potentially worrying, decreasing across all areas. This is particularly highlighted by an average of 48.6 minutes per attempt inside the area across the final 6 matches of the league season and the World Cup, a significant drop off compared to the number quoted in the previous paragraph. It is a worry that, if he is not given enough recovery time, his form may be affected.
The World Cup Factor
Linking to the previous point that Kane may be rested at the start of the season due to injury recovery, there is doubt surrounding many FPL picks with the worry that they may be rested for a period of time to avoid World Cup burnout. Do we leave these players out of our teams with the intention of an early wildcard, or hope that they only miss one gameweek, or even start the season? Currently Kane is selected in 33.5% of FPL teams suggesting that many managers are banking on the latter in Kane’s case. I would argue that this is a significant risk for several reasons. Firstly, Spurs’ fixture list for the first 5 matches isn’t the kindest, featuring 3 away games, including a trip to Old Trafford as well as a home game against Liverpool. Another worry is the so called “August Curse” on Kane, as he has never scored a Premier League goal in the month of August. A more likely explanation is that Kane is a slow starter and takes a while to get going at the beginning of a season, meaning if he is rested for the opening few gameweeks perhaps he may struggle to open his account even when playing his first few games in September. The final worry over this is how many of Kane’s Spurs teammates were involved in squads, particularly of England and Belgium, that reached the semi finals of the World Cup. It is unclear whether these players will be rested and if so for what length of time, and it may result in a slow start to the season for Spurs and Kane while they get up to speed.
FPL Value
The issues I have raised over Kane so far are relatively short term and are unlikely to be much of a factor to consider for managers considering to bring Kane into their teams after the the always chaotic and difficult selection process for the first few gameweeks of a new FPL season. With the help of some figures from a comment from user Olivier Bernards Watch, which look at the points per match per million provided by players based off last seasons performance and their new price points, here is some analysis of Kane’s value:
Forwards 10M+
Kane 0.472, Aguero 0.618, Aubameyang 0.609, Lukaku 0.436, Jesus 0.410
Forwards 8-10M
Vardy 0.544, Firmino 0.515, Lacazette 0.453, Morata 0.433, Giroud 0.338
Forwards 6-8M
Zaha 0.671, Wood 0.662, Arnautovic 0.657, Wilson 0.6, Tosun 0.557, Mounie 0.55, Perez 0.525
Midfielders 10M+
Salah 0.646, Sterling 0.627, de Bruyne 0.56, Hazard 0.485, Sanchez 0.467
Midfielders 8-10M
Silva 0.682, Pogba 0.638, Mahrez 0.6, Sane 0.589, Eriksen 0.568, Son 0.565, Alli 0.544, Mane 0.537, Ozil 0.506
Midfielders 6-8M
Ramsey 0.72, Milivojevic 0.615, Gross 0.614, Mkhitaryan 0.586, Shaqiri 0.573, Martial 0.56, Mata 0.554, Sigurdsson 0.48, Walcott 0.477
Results
There are a lot of numbers there but how can we interpret all this, and most importantly what do they tell us about the selection of Kane? The first thing to note is that, as with anything when picking an FPL team, these numbers cannot be considered in isolation – other things must be factored in, such as upcoming fixtures and form. Also, playing time is vitally important as not all of the players above are guaranteed starters, although most are. However I believe that some important conclusions can be drawn from them with regards specifically to how important, or not, as the case may be, Kane is in the FPL game.
The first obvious point to note is how Kane directly compares to Forwards in his price bracket and it is clear that Aubameyang and Aguero appear to offer much better value than Kane. Pep’s rotation of Aguero and Gabriel Jesus is a factor to be considered but Aubameyang is a clear first choice and, while he is unproven over a full Premier League season, his performances after his transfer to Arsenal last season were very promising. There isn’t much of great appeal in the next forward price bracket but both Firmino and Vardy do offer more value than Kane and they are regular starters.
I think most interest comes in the next price bracket however, which offers an interesting alternative to picking Kane. Most of the Forwards in the 6-8M bracket should be regular starters and while it is unlikely they will outscore Kane over a season there are plenty of options with regards to rotation and, based off this metric, they all offer better value for money than Kane. Considering that you could include two of these forwards for little more than the cost of just Kane it certainly must be thought about as a tactic that gives more spending flexibility elsewhere in your team.
Moving on to what the data tells us about potential alternatives to Kane in Midfield areas, the first thing to highlight is the performance of his Spurs midfield teammates. Eriksen, Alli, and Son all rank favourably in comparison to Kane, and whereas many players may in the past have chosen to double up, picking one of these players with Kane when Spurs have a kind run of fixtures, I would propose doubling up with 2 out of these 3 midfield options, as they are all consistent points scorers. There are 5 Midfielders in the game this year with a base price of over 10M and 4 out of these 5 rank above Kane, the exception being Sanchez, who had a difficult 17/18 season. It is feasible that FPL managers may be inclined to try to fit 2 of these high end midfielders into their teams and, should they try to include Kane as well, it would lead to significant budgeting elsewhere in the team. All the players in the 8-10M price bracket also offer more value than Kane and, seeing as 6 out of last seasons top 10 midfield point scorers are present here, it is advisable to try to fit them into your teams even if at the expense of Kane.
Verdict
I believe that with all the information considered there is enough of an argument to suggest that even if Kane matches his performance of previous seasons he is still not worthy of a guaranteed place in our FPL teams, and if he experiences any drop in his performances then he will certainly be a waste of our FPL budgets. Although it seems ridiculous to say, he probably isn’t worth the gamble!
