Arsenal may have thought they had seen the back of nemesis Harry Kane when he left Tottenham for Bayern Munich in the summer, but he returns to north London looking to dump Mikel Arteta’s side out of the Champions League.
The Gunners host Bayern in Tuesday’s quarter-final first leg.
The 30-year-old has scored more Premier League goals against Arsenal than anybody else – with 14 strikes. Five of those came at the Emirates, which is the joint most for a non-Arsenal player.
Kane has enjoyed a record-breaking start in Germany with 38 goals in his first 37 games.
He is running away with the European Golden Shoe, the competition for the top scorer in any of Europe’s top divisions and one he has never won before, with 32 goals to date.
The England captain is only the fourth player to reach that total in a Bundesliga campaign, after Bayern legends Gerd Muller and Robert Lewandowski, who did it three times each, and Cologne’s Dieter Muller.
The record for goals in a Bundesliga season was Lewandowski’s 41 for Bayern in 2020-21, a record Kane would need 10 goals in his final six games to break.
“He will win the European Golden Shoe this year and all this will add to the perception that, yes, he is a fantastic striker,” said European football journalist Guillem Balague on BBC Radio 5 Live’s Euro Leagues Show.
“He breaks the record of Lewandowski and we start talking about legendary status.
“He has adapted so quickly. His four kids and wife are there, he is trying to learn German. He has jumped out of the comfort zone and into the pressure cooker and is still doing well.”
On top of that, nobody has scored more Champions League goals this season than Kane’s six.
The competition may be Kane’s best chance of winning his first major trophy, having won nothing during his decade in the Tottenham first team.
He moved to a team which had won 11 consecutive Bundesliga titles but they sit 16 points behind leaders Bayer Leverkusen with six games to go.
If Leverkusen beat Werder Bremen on Sunday it will be the first time since the start of April 2013 that Bayern have not been the champions of Germany – and it could even be confirmed on Saturday if Thomas Tuchel’s side suffer an unlikely defeat at home to second-bottom Cologne.
“If Kane had more titles he would be seen in a different way to everyone – the proof of it is the Ballon d’Or,” said Balague.
“That shows you how popular you are and he has never finished higher than 10th. No doubt now, he is at a top club, trying to win things at a top club and is delivering.”
European football writer Mina Rzouki said: “How easy it has seemed for Harry Kane. Bayern have struggled at times this season but he has come in and taken to it like a duck to water. It would be a real shame if he didn’t win anything.”
