Harry Kane is running out of options if he wants to quit Tottenham

Harry Kane is running out of options if he wants to quit Tottenham
Harry Kane is running out of options if he wants to quit Tottenham

The Museum of London will open its entrance doors next Saturday to an exhibition on Harry Kane entitled ‘I want to play football’. The exit from Tottenham Hotspur, should Kane once again consider his future at the club this summer, is less obvious.

By a quirk of fate, the start date of the exhibition, May 21, will mark one year to the day since Kane made his first public pitch to move to Manchester City during a round of golf with Gary Neville that was broadcast on the pundit’s YouTube channel.

Back then, Kane made it clear that simply playing football was no longer enough and that it was time to win. Fast forward a year and the only prize he can claim this season is a top-four place that could be destined for Arsenal instead.

In the press release for the exhibition, Kane spoke of his "delight" at showcasing his "trophies, shirts, golden boots and some personal pieces which haven't been seen publicly before". It was not obvious which trophies Kane could have been referencing, given he has not lifted any with Tottenham or England. There will certainly be no winners’ medals on display, although visitors will be able to listen to Kane’s pre-match playlist.

Zeynep Kuşsan, the curator of the exhibition, remarked "we shouldn't wait until something is in the past to celebrate it" and it may well be that Kane's hopes of making a move that would pretty much guarantee trophies are history.

City made one bid for Kane last summer, £85 million plus £15m in add-ons, that came nowhere near chairman Daniel Levy’s valuation of the player and Tottenham barely had to put up a fight to keep their star man, who returned late to pre-season and missed the opening game of the campaign.

It was Tottenham's then newly-appointed managing director of football, Fabio Paratici, who apparently laid it on the line for Kane, telling him in no uncertain terms that City must simply not have wanted him as much as Spurs.

There was no debating the fact Pep Guardiola was keen to add Kane to his squad, but Paratici reckoned that City's bid did not represent a real effort to sign him and that has been borne out by the fact the Premier League champions have not hung around to find out what the 28-year-old might want to do this year.

Erling Haaland will instead profit from the deliveries of Kevin De Bruyne, who Kane (not quite with a nod and a wink) told Neville is a "striker's dream". One might conclude that the Norwegian was front and centre of City's long-term planning well before the doomed offer for Kane was made.

Erling Haaland is on the verge of signing for Manchester City - AFP
Erling Haaland is on the verge of signing for Manchester City - AFP

Manchester United had been considered a realistic potential destination for Kane this summer while the Old Trafford club were considering appointing his former Spurs manager Mauricio Pochettino.

There is, of course, a very legitimate case to be made that United are not currently a step up from Spurs, who will finish above them this season. Either way, the decision to bring in Erik ten Hag, rather than Pochettino, may well have settled that debate.

Kane might have gambled on United returning to somewhere near their former glory under Pochettino, with whom he went so close to winning the Premier League title and Champions League at Spurs, but playing for Ten Hag at a club with so many issues to solve is unlikely to be tempting.

So what next? Kane's exhibition runs until the World Cup in December and the smart money would be on Kane still playing in the capital with Tottenham by then.

It has been clear for some time that Kane has prioritised country over club and there is no chance he will make any decision that could risk his form ahead of a World Cup he will feel he can win with England.

During his round of golf with Neville, Kane ruled out moving abroad by saying "I don’t think that really interests me in the near future" and admitted that Alan Shearer’s Premier League goalscoring record of 260 is in his sights.

That only leaves Liverpool, who would be more likely to try for Son Heung-min than Kane, and Chelsea, who Tottenham would refuse to sell to. With two years remaining on his contract this summer, it would seem Levy, rather than Kane or Neville, is still in possession of the keys to any exit door.