Kane becomes Shakespeare's merchant of menace

Harry Kane plundered four goals on Thursday night as Tottenham Hotspur demolished  Leicester City 6-1 at the King Power Stadium. With Chelsea having wrapped up the Premier League title on 12 May at West Bromwich Albion, the victory for Tottenham were merely aesthetic.

Harry Kane's four goal haul at Leicester City put him top of the goalscoring chart. Reuters/Darren Staples

However for Leicester City boss Craig Shakespeare, the thrashing could cloud his talks with the Leicester City's Thai owers over his future.

Shakespeare is due to meet them next week and will be told if he will carry on as manager after taking over on 23 February from title winning boss Claudio Ranieri.

But the 6-1 annihilataion in the penultimate home game of the season might be much ado about nothing. When Shakespeare stepped up to become caretaker manager, City were flirting near the relegation zone.

His first Premier League game in charge was a 3–1 victory over Liverpool and Leicester won the next three to begin their climb away from the drop zone.

"We came up against a quality side but the disappointing thing is I didn't see enough desire to defend as a team," Shakespeare lamented. "I have to take some responsibility for that after changing the formation. If you get beaten 6-1, there's no positives."

Shakespeare's counterpart, Mauricio Pochettino, hailed Kane as a special striker. The England international's haul at Leicester took his Premier League tally to 26 goals, two more than Everton's Romelu Lukaku, with one game remaining in the race for the golden boot.

Kane's performance, said Pochettino, would further enhance his credentials as one of Europe's best and most coveted strikers.

"It is very clear we will keep the players we want to keep," Pochettino said. "We are so calm about our key players. They are happy here, we have an exciting project."

Kane's fifth Premier League hat-trick in just over two years took him to 32 goals in all competitions this season, four more than he managed last term and one more than the 31 he bagged in the 2014-15 season.

"We feel so proud of Harry, to score four goals was fantastic," Pochettino said. "He was injured twice this season but he is so fresh now and he is trying to score a lot of goals to finish at the top. Harry's a special player, he loves Tottenham. He means a lot for the team. "I've always said that he's one of the best strikers in the world. His performances show that we are right."

Kane said: "There was a bit of a media build-up on the race for the golden boot and I wanted at least one or two to put the pressure on. But to get four is amazing.

"I'm now at the top but we go into the final game at Hull with the same mentality, to make sure we win first and foremost and then I'll try to score as many as I can."