RIATH AL-SAMARRAI: Leaving now would never diminish what Harry Kane has achieved at Tottenham

A video will be circulating from Thursday evening. It shows Daniel Levy, stern-faced, eyes on the temporary wreckage of another game, and to his right is one of the Tottenham directors, Donna-Maria Cullen.

Marcus Rashford had just put Manchester United 2-0 up and to most amateur lip readers it looks like she said ‘This is s***’. For all the things Spurs do wrong, she got them right.

It has been. And it still is, despite how that loss turned into an uplifting draw, because Tottenham really are the soap opera of the spring. The Harry Kane situation means they’ll likely be doing the same job over the summer as well, and we may get back to that conundrum soon.

But first, let’s focus on Levy’s night at work, which began with street protests against his tenure ahead of kickoff and escalated with bigger choruses of the same message eight minutes into the game.

They were 1-0 down at the time, but progress is a funny thing in football – they were 2-0 down to Newcastle at the same stage, and it’s a good thing that doesn’t end in a refund.

Except that things are not going well and there is no progress. It’s hard to quantify how wildly Tottenham have fallen since September and you could feel on Thursday that the desire to see Levy play is growing in the atmosphere in the beautiful stadium he has built. The crowd hasn’t turned en masse just yet, but there were vibes at 2-0 when the step from feverish to nasty didn’t feel very far.

Seeing Levy in this crisis is interesting. You may even feel sympathy. I do, to some extent. He has been with the club since 2001, more than a third of his 61 years. He has built the best ground in the country and built a reputation, a reputation indeed, for his unwillingness to compromise on Tottenham’s business interests. ‘More painful than my hip replacement,’ was Sir Alex Ferguson’s opinion of dealing with Levy, and you want that on your side.

He is known to have won the League Cup only once, but there have been five defeats in finals – one was in the Champions League, two were by a single goal, another on penalties – as well as 16 seasons of European football. Some of it was really excellent to watch. So it’s not a mess.

We’re not talking about Farhad Moshiri’s incompetence at Everton, the sacking of United by the Glazers, or Todd Boehly’s ever-expanding boundaries of shame. But that’s where the idea of ​​relativity comes in, as Tottenham have also been painfully mediocre for an operation of such a grand scale. They haven’t been bad; just haven’t been nearly as good as they should be.

In the land of the Premier League giants, Tottenham have long been a club that will only push so hard in the name of ambition. A club that promises to dare, but only if dare does not cost too much money. A club whose mismanagement of so many important decisions regularly left people wondering if they shouldn’t be a little less ‘s***’.

At this point, and against that background of antipathy and atrophy, let’s chew Levy’s impossible decision around Kane, because it’s the saga that will ultimately define both of their careers.

The problem facing Levy, as dictated by the ticking clock of Kane’s contract, is that we’re in perfect storm territory.

His popularity as chairman has never been lower at a time when logic strongly suggests he would be best served by cashing in on his most cherished asset.

This year, Kane could still go for £100m if Manchester United and Chelsea cut horns and go to auction. But this time next season it will be zero, and Levy is not a gambler.

All this means he should definitely go down the unpalatable path of selling Kane in the summer, barring a turn of events with Kane opting to sign a new contract – a possibility that goes against many of the current rumours.

Granted, if Levy was in a strong position, he could get away with that sale. It wouldn’t be well received, but it would be reasonable, especially if there was some confidence in how the money could be spent.

But Levy’s problem there is clear – he doesn’t have any of those things, nor a manager or director of football, and how many fans trust him to have the knowledge and infrastructure to orchestrate the rebuild?

Levy did it once before with Gareth Bale’s money and came out with Christian Eriksen, among others. But this is a different market and a different Tottenham – even if they get £100m for Kane it won’t go that far and mistakes will be felt more sharply. So it’s a higher risk situation and Levy would light a match if he’s covered in gas.

So it’s a hellish angle where he’s at a stage where Kane has every right to think about his career elsewhere.

At 29 years old, he is a modern marvel of English football and so much more than a goalscorer. Good for so much more than a pile of second place medals.

To have been a man of one club since he was 11, apart from his loans, is fantastic. Likewise, there’s no reason why a move at this point should detract from what it’s achieved.

Only he can decide if the greater prospect of trophies elsewhere is worth the upheaval. But it’s fair to assume he’s been eyeing Erling Haaland from time to time this season and in all likelihood knew it might have been him if talks had turned out differently last summer.

I suspect his goals wouldn’t have been much different in that Manchester City team and that would see him playing for a Treble right now.

If those feelings exist then Kane is not the type to put them into words, but he will know that this summer or next summer will be his last meaningful chance to take that silver step, whether it be at United, that if you like, or Chelsea, soon. directed by Mauricio Pochettino.

The alternative is the comforts of home, where there is no permanent manager, no director of football, no obvious route to a trophy and a chairman who has become a lightning rod to all of the above and every drama in between. More than one legacy hinges on whether Kane decides he’s gotten too old for this ‘s***’.

THE CITY MUST PROVE THAT THEY ARE BUILT ON A STURDY FOUNDATION

When I look at Manchester City I see one of the best collections of players ever assembled and a manager who will be somewhere among the greats. It’s a beautiful thing.

But I also see a club that has to show that they are not built on systematic financial cheating over a long period of time.

When I look at Arsenal I see a brilliant young side who were way above his weight and carried no such disclaimers.

RADUCANU’S INJURIES ARE SAD TO SEE

Emma Raducanu is outside the top 100, has suffered another injury and seems more lost by the week.

If she was beaten every game for the rest of her career, she would still have accomplished something far greater than most, but it’s incredibly sad that such a refrain has been needed for so long.