Tottenham Transfer News: Harry Kane Valued at £100m, Rated Above Angel Di Maria

During a week in which Freddy Adu—once referred to as the "next Pele" during his tender teenage years, per Richard Arrowsmith of Mail Online—signed for Finnish club Kuopion Palloseura to fully cement his fall from grace, you'd think some perspective would be applied when assessing the recent achievements of Harry Kane.

The English media are renowned for hyping up young players prematurely, and former Manchester City player Rodney Marsh has adhered to that stereotype spectacularly by claiming the Tottenham striker is worth £100 million.

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Speaking with talkSPORT (h/t Tom Matson of Goal.com), Marsh claimed Kane will go on to become one of the greats and that he's already better than Manchester United record signing Angel Di Maria:

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I reckon he is worth £100m, I honestly do. If I was a chairman of a football club, that is what I would pay for Harry Kane.

I think he is going to go on and be a bigger and better player than Alan Shearer.

Manchester City paid £32m (€47m) for a relatively untried young player called Eliaquim Mangala. If Mangala is worth £32m, Harry Kane is worth £100m all day long.

Angel Di Maria cost Manchester United £62m (€75m). I think Harry Kane is a much better player than Di Maria, in the Premier League.

"

Kane has been a phenomenal find for Tottenham this season. Mauricio Pochettino began the campaign with what looked like a dearth of centre-forward options, but the 21-year-old has blossomed at the point of this high-octane Spurs outfit.

Here's a look at the figures behind his remarkable breakthrough season, per Sky Sports News HQ:

But the clamour surrounding Kane reached hyperbolic levels after he scored just seconds into his debut for the England team. Naturally, plenty of people are delighted to see such a humble, happy footballer flourishing, but it's critical that some caution is exercised when it comes to bright youngsters.

Earlier in the season, some Bleacher Report experts took a look at which star could become the first-ever £100 million player. Unsurprisingly, none of them offered Kane as a potential record-breaker:

Kane's campaign has been remarkable, though. There's nothing too spectacular about his game, but the energy, endeavour and intelligence Kane plays with have helped him develop into one of the most feared forwards in the Premier League at the moment.

But stressing caution once again, it's been only a few months of excellent form. This superb cartoon from Zezo (h/t Bleacher Report UK) sums up the current situation surrounding the player perfectly:

Kane has a lot of major challenges to face as a young footballer. Teams will be monitoring him much more closely now, and the pressure on him will continue to grow. When he does eventually suffer a lull in form—which is inevitable—he will be faced with rediscovering his sparkle with plenty of fickle figures in the footballing stratosphere ready to write him off.

Bleacher Report's Stan Collymore thinks he's the real deal:

The chances are he will become one of the finest centre-forwards around, but the lad has made only 26 top-flight starts in his professional career, per Soccerbase. He's an enormous talent, a popular figure and someone who has the class to go to the very top, but to heap so much expectation on him at this stage is ridiculous.

Paul Gilham/Getty Images

The spotlight will be trained on this young man almost relentlessly now, and it's going to be intriguing to see how well he handles it. Until now, Kane has insouciantly taken everything in stride. For his own sake, that's an admirable trait he's going to have to preserve if he's going to fulfil his undisputed potential.