England reaction - Opinion: Harry Kane cannot keep getting away with dangerous play - Paul Parker

ByPaul Parker

Updated 28/03/2021 at 09:01 GMT

The former England and Manchester United defender believes Harry Kane is stretching the rules of football by winning free-kicks and penalties and worries it will lead to his opponents developing injuries, and thinks it may be because he is the national team captain that the Tottenham striker is not being punished.

Harry Kane won and scored another penalty in Tottenham’s Premier League 2-0 victory over Aston Villa on Sunday, but call me old school - he should not be going down so easily.

By leaving a trailing leg, I don’t know whether you call it clever or you call it cheating. Contact allows you to go down, but I’m anti that. I believe you go down because you’ve been forced to, not because you’ve got an opportunity to go down.

I certainly wouldn’t be celebrating if I’ve stuck out a leg to win a penalty, it’ll always stay in my mind that I’ve had to cheat and put someone else in trouble.

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People have been out shopping in a supermarket and been hit with a trolley that’s been tougher than the challenge Kane received, and they haven’t gone down.

The other issue that bothers me is Kane’s tendency to back into players to win set-pieces. It is dangerous and I think he is getting away with it because he is the England captain.

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It’s how I developed the issues with my shoulder. I dislocated it for the first time when someone jumped into me as a 17-year-old and went on to dislocate it seven times before I finally had an operation. It’s dangerous and he doesn’t seem to get pulled up on it.

We also recently saw an incident with Arsenal’s Gabriel in the north London derby, when he put a shoulder into the defender. You’ve got VAR, but nothing happened.

People should be talking about him being a good leader and a great goalscorer, not someone who can back into people and maybe con/persuade referees into giving free-kicks and penalties.

At some point, something will have to be done.

Kane will not want to sit out any of England’s World Cup qualifiers

Spurs boss Jose Mourinho has made it clear he would like to see Kane rested for some of England’s games against San Marino, Albania and Poland. But he will want to play every game, every minute, because he wants to break records. Jimmy Greaves didn’t have the chance to play against teams like San Marino to get those goals.

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If he’s told he’s being rested, I don’t think he’ll be too pleased. He is 100% focused on individual records. There’s a lot of good in it, but there’s a little bit of bad in that as well. Does one outweigh the other?

The negative side is that if you put individual goals ahead of the team, it’s a big worry. A sideways pass instead of a shot from a tight angle could be the difference between winning the league or not.

I’m not saying it definitely works that way round with Kane, but he will want those accolades.

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