By Betsefy
Tottenham Hotspur striker Harry Kane will be out to break a Premier League goalscoring record set by Alan Shearer when the Lilywhites face Leicester City on Saturday evening.
Antonio Conte‘s side have been given the green light to welcome the Foxes to the capital after initial concerns that preparations for Queen Elizabeth II’s state funeral would lead to a postponement.
Tottenham head into the game aiming to bounce back from a disappointing 2-0 defeat to Sporting Lisbon in the Champions League, which marked their first loss of the season.
However, Conte’s men remain unbeaten in the Premier League, whereas upcoming opponents Leicester sit rock bottom of the table having only taken one point from 18 on offer.
Talisman Kane has started the new season in prolific form with five goals in six Premier League appearances, and he is partial to a strike or two against Brendan Rodgers‘s men.
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The 29-year-old – who spent the second half of the 2012-13 season on loan at the King Power Stadium – has racked up an astounding 19 goals in 18 games against the Foxes in all tournaments, 17 of which have come in the Premier League.
Should Kane manage to bag a hat-trick Saturday’s game, he would equal the record set by Shearer for the most goals against a single opponent in the Premier League, with the 52-year-old scoring 20 against Leeds United.
Kane would therefore need to find the back of the net four times to set a new all-time record in the category, but the England captain has done so before against Leicester.
During Spurs’ 6-1 win away at Leicester in the 2016-17 season, Kane scored four goals and set up another, which came after he had netted a hat-trick in this fixture at White Hart Lane in 2014-15.
Last season, Kane scored both home and away for Tottenham against Leicester as Conte’s side did the double over their opponents – prevailing 2-3 at the King Power and 3-1 at home.
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While Kane is nailed on to start on Saturday, Conte has three other attackers fighting for two spots in Richarlison, Dejan Kulusevski and Son Heung-min, the latter of whom is yet to get off the mark in terms of goals this term.
Kulusevski has been sacrificed for Richarlison and Son in recent weeks, but Conte has sent a stark selection warning to the latter amid his struggles to put the ball in the back of the net.
“There are no players that are undroppable. This has to be very clear. There are no players that are undroppable,” Conte told reporters in his press conference.
“If I am telling this it is only to protect my players and to give them the possibility to be, in every moment, at the top. Then you know very well you can play one game well, another you can score, another not, but my task is to try to protect my players and to protect the team.
“In the Champions League they are always massive games and for this reason I need to have all my players available. I need all my players available for rotation to be in every moment ready when I call them to play and to play well for the team, for the club, for the fans, for everybody.”
Tottenham could rise to the top of the Premier League table with a win on Saturday if Manchester City fail to beat Wolverhampton Wanderers in the day’s early kickoff, with current leaders Arsenal in action against Brentford on Sunday.
