‘Relentless’ – Harry Kane did the one thing young players don’t do enough of now

Harry Kane may not have been blessed with rapid pace or brute strength, but there’s one vital trait he had that many youngsters simply do not.

Kane was one of the very few who graduated from Tottenham’s academy and into the first-team.

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When it comes to the statistics of how many from the academy set-up make it to professional football across the board, it makes for tough reading.

According to a 2024 study from the University of Essex, just four per cent of academy players go on to feature in top-flight football.

Additionally, only six per cent make the cut in the lower tiers.

However, Kane has made the most of his career, and then some.

He stands as Tottenham and England’s all-time leading goalscorers and now leads the line for German giants Bayern Munich.

It is a journey former Arsenal academy manager Roy Massey did not envisage having released Kane from the Gunners’ youth set-up when he was 12.

But Jake Livermore, who was at Tottenham when Kane was coming through the ranks as a prospect, noted how the striker had something about him several of his peers did not.

“I think he just had that relentlessness of just wanting to be better,” Livermore told talkSPORT.com.

“He was always the one out there, always. You had to drag him in from training and even the loan spells he had didn’t quite go to plan.

“He went again and went again and went again and kept testing himself and then, before you knew it, it did fall into place.”

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As Livermore pointed out, Kane never quite looked like a world beater during his loan stints at Leyton Orient, Millwall, Norwich City and Leicester City.

Across those four clubs – in League One, the Championship and Premier League – he scored 16 goals from 65 appearances.

Safe to say, few could have foreseen Kane going on to become the goal machine he is based on those loan stints.

However, then-Tottenham boss Tim Sherwood showed plenty of faith in a 20-year-old Kane and started him in the final six games of the 2013/14 Premier League season.

Kane immediately repaid Sherwood by scoring on his first three starts and as Livermore noted, ‘the rest is history’.

“In terms of the natural ability he had, he continued to work at that and work on even his strengths,” Livermore said.

“I think that’s one thing that a lot of young players don’t do now. I think it’s too easy to look at what players haven’t got instead of focusing on what you have got, and I think he worked on both of those things.”

Livermore added: “He was always a goalscorer. He wasn’t particularly blessed with pace or strength but he did manage to work on all of those in his all-round game.

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“He’s just become, over the seasons and years, not only a goalscorer but a great player as well in terms of bringing people into play and making an all-round better team.”

Livermore and Kane shared the pitch for Tottenham on seven occasions for a total of 282 minutes.

The midfielder then moved on to Hull City on loan for the 2013/14 season, which became a permanent switch the following year as he made 144 appearances for the Tigers.

Livermore then secured a transfer to West Brom in January 2017 and even earned a recall to the England squad two months later after almost five years away from the international stage.