A hell of a September for Kane (and Spurs)!

After all the negative personal headlines about the "no goals in August" stat, it has been a hell of a month for Harry Kane, and of course Spurs! Harry has scored no less than 11 club goals, plus the two he hit for England on the first day of the month against Malta. The benefit to his club has been 7 unbeaten games ( we are on a run of 8 now), including two fine Champions League wins, in which Harry scored 5 of our 6 goals. He even scored a "perfect" hat-trick against APOEL, and just needed a headed goal to repeat that feat against Huddersfield last Saturday. To cap it all, Harry was even applauded off by the Huddersfield fans when he was substituted near the end of the game.

Unsurprisingly, Harry is our player of the month for September, and he has leapt to the top of the early player of the season rankings at Spurs Odyssey. Harry was man of the match in four of the six games this month in which he appeared.

Have a look at this table comparing his previous records at this time of the season:-

         Goals     Grade  Squad No.

Sep 13 - 0 goals - 6.4  (Number 37)
Sep 14 - 3 goals - 6.19 (Number 18)
Sep 15 - 1 goal  - 6.35 (Number 10)
Sep 16 - 2 goals - 5.87 (Number 10)
Sep 17 - 11 goals- 7.55 (Number 10)

* Goals refer to club goals in all competitions August & September
* Grade refers to the Spurs Odyssey accumulated performance grades at the end of September.

Harry is winning deserved praise on such a wide scale these days. Look at these figures regarding the scorers of most goals in the top 5 European Leagues so far this year:- (Produced by Sky last week-end)

Messi       - 43 goals
Kane        - 36 goals
Cavani      - 35 goals
Lewandowski - 34 goals
Aubameyang  - 33 goals
Ronaldo     - 31 goals

Historically, Harry Kane's best months of the season for Premier League goal scoring come later in the season, but thanks to 6 Premier League goals this month (and 5 in Europe!), we can now say that the Spurs number 10 has 9 league goals in September so far in his career.

Mauricio Pochettino says he finds it difficult to find different words to say about Harry every three days, and the headline writers (including this amateur) get new challenges every week. I personally used the "Kane is able" headline back in his Spurs Academy days, but I expect we will see a few more "Kanings" in the years to come.

Addendum 13/10/17 - Harry won the Premier League player of the month award for September. This was his fifth such award. Only Steven Gerrard has won more. Harry also scored more league goals (6) than 15 of the Premier League clubs this month!

Also of note at this stage of the season is the fact that Moussa Sissoko and Eric Dier are the only two players to have playing time in all 10 of our games. Sissoko scored his first goal for the club against Huddersfield, and we saw an excellent club debut by Juan Foyth in the league cup game against Barnsley. Danny Rose's prolonged absence is hardly being noticed these days, especially with the continuing fine form of Ben Davies, who has even scored two goals already this season. Most of the team are consistently winning high grades, not least another impressive signing - Davinson Sanchez. Sanchez has slotted into the back three as if he has always been a part of the team.

On the downside we have seen red cards (both for second yellows) for Jan Vertonghen (v Dortmund) and Serge Aurier (v West Ham), and a deserved yellow card for simulation for Dele Alli at Huddersfield. Dele has also been suspended from tomorrow night's England game against Slovenia after his controversial one-finger sign when playing for England against Slovakia. Most Spurs fans have observed a dip in form from Dele, but he has still scored three goals so far, including our winner against Barnsley.

It is also important to mention our failure so far to win a Premier League game in three attempts at Wembley, which hopefully will be rectified against Bournemouth in our next game. On the other hand, our away record is superb, and extends to 6 consecutive league games, which is a figure second only to Bill Nicholson's 1960 side.

We played seven games in September, and have five in October, all of which will be tough after Bournemouth (not that we should under-estimate them). After "The Cherries" we face Real Madrid (A), Liverpool (H), West Ham (Carabao Cup - H) and Manchester United (A). That away record is going to be sorely tested, but we go into October in third place - one point above Chelsea.

· Review the 2017-18 Premier League season here

Don't forget to check out the players' current figures re. appearances, cards, goals scored and accumulated ratings to date at the bottom of this page.

...if you want to read reports of the matches played during this season, then links are on the Spurs Odyssey Fixtures/Reports page here. By working your way back through the previous month's figures, you can review the performances over the last 17 years!