Premier League 2016-17 awards: 5 best forwards
2. Harry Kane, Tottenham
Goal points per 90 minutes played: 7.00
By scoring against Bournemouth recently, Harry Kane put his name up in lights alongside some legends of the Premier League.
4 - Harry Kane is only the 4th player to score 20+ goals in 3 consecutive @premierleague seasons (Shearer, Henry, van Nistelrooy). Elite. pic.twitter.com/bHYKYzKUZ1
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) April 15, 2017
Not to diminish his achievement, but as four of his league goals this season have been penalties they don’t count in my ranking system, else he’d probably be No. 1. He has also only scored non-penalty goals in 10 matches this season, whereas the likes of Diego Costa have scored in sixteen.
The England striker has bagged hat-tricks against decent mid-ranking opposition in the form of West Brom and Stoke, but aside from a penalty at Arsenal, Kane hasn’t scored against any of Spurs’ rivals in the top six this season.
Only four non-penalty goals on the road is perhaps a disappointing contribution, too, especially as he hasn’t scored one since New Year’s Day. This has given him by far the fewest away goal bonus points of any player on this list. He’s missed eight games through injury which won’t have helped, though, with five of those being away from home.
Kane has recorded the top two goal-point-scoring matches of the five players in the countdown, and four of the top seven. But he also has three of the bottom five, and that has held him back from reaching the top of the pile.