Bayern Munich an enticing option for Harry Kane but it can be a double-edged sword

Of all the teams in the top five leagues in Europe last season, Bayern Munich averaged the highest number of shots at goal per game. No other side recorded more than their 18.

Only Manchester City exceeded Bayern’s 92 league goals across the campaign, and because the Premier League is a 20-team competition, and the Bundesliga only 18-strong, Bayern’s 92 goals in 34 outings means they averaged more potency, overall, than City, on 94 goals from 38 matches.

Dig down into the statistics and the data analysts at whoscored.com would also inform you that Bayern, with their fleet of wingers, and sprinting crossers from full-back, collectively outdribbled all their elite-division peers, including the Real Madrid of tearaway Vinicius Junior.

There’s more from the 2022-23 statsbank. All those Bayern crosses, when aimed high, could count on reliable targets: they had the best ratio for winning aerial duels of all the clubs across the Bundesliga, Premier League, Italian Serie A, Spanish Liga and French Ligue 1.

Yet this was all clocked up in what, by Bayern’s standards, was a poor, nervous and inconsistent season, where they won the German title – for the 11th time in a succession – by a uncharacteristically small margin, and only because, with the taut duel against Borussia Dortmund decided on the last afternoon, Dortmund could only draw, gifting Bayern the crown on goal difference.

Bayern had already sacked a head coach Julian Nagelsmann in March. Within minutes of the final whistle being blown on match day 34, they announced the departures of chief executive Oliver Kahn and sports director Hasan Salihamidzic.

All of this weighs on Harry Kane, perhaps the most accomplished all-round centre-forward still active in European football,