Robin van Persie vs Harry Kane – at their best, who was better?

Published by %s
May 6, 2020
Robin van Persie vs Harry Kane - at their best, who was better?

It’s Wednesday, and that means we delve into the next edition of our fantasy head-to-head series. Next up is another rivalry that gets the fantasy treatment as we move south to London.

The vote for this head-to-head wasn’t particularly close as Robin van Persie vs Harry Kane secured a 42% share of the three options on Twitter as Arsenal and Tottenham lock horns once more. For this one, we will take a look at Van Persie’s 2011/12 campaign for the Gunners. Granted, Van Persie’s best-rated Premier League season was 2009/10, but having made just 16 league appearances, we opted to focus on his top-scoring campaign and one that prompted a contentious move to Manchester United in 2012. 

In the case of Kane, the Tottenham marksman’s top-rated season came in 2016/17. It wasn’t his most prolific, yet the England captain and Spurs star yielded a WhoScored rating of 7.68 that campaign as Spurs produced their best ever points total and highest Premier League finish in their history as they earned 86 points to finish second to London rivals Chelsea. 

In a season Kane took the Premier League by storm, the English hitman bagged 29 league goals and provided an additional seven assists for Mauricio Pochettino’s side. His WhoScored rating was the fourth-best in the Premier League as he won the Golden Boot by four goals, with Romelu Lukaku his closest competitor for the award. 

Robin van Persie vs Harry Kane - at their best, who was better?

It’s a shame that Van Persie and Kane never did battle in a North London Derby as it would have been a real-life battle between two of the Premier League’s finest frontmen on their day and while Kane would put in a 30-goal season in 2017/18, Van Persie’s individual campaign was better than his Spurs adversary has managed in his English top-flight career. Of course, Kane’s 2016/17 was made all the more impressive by the fact he missed eight league matches and it’s highly likely he would have put in his first 30-goal campaign that season had he played the full 38 matches as Van Persie did in 2011/12, but the creative side to the latter’s game sees him edge out the former in this head-to-head.