Don't judge Kane on goals alone, says Mourinho

The English international striker scored his 150th Premier League goal in just 218 appearances

LONDON:

Jose Mourinho insists striker Harry Kane's influence for Tottenham Hotspur goes way beyond the 201 goals he has now scored for the north London club, after the England skipper sealed a 1-0 win over West Bromwich Albion on Sunday.

Kane headed Tottenham's winner in the 88th minute at the Hawthorns, breaking the resistance of a rugged West Brom side and putting Spurs top of the Premier League until Leicester City beat Wolverhampton Wanderers later to replace them.

It was his 150th Premier League goal in 218 appearances and continued a sensational start to the season for Kane who has scored 13 goals and 10 assists in 14 matches in all competitions for his club this season.

"Harry Kane you have to say has this many goals, this many assists, this number of balls recovered, this number of duels won," Mourinho said when asked to rate the striker.

"When you go to stats in relation to the strikers, I always say that the stats should be how many goals has a striker scored, and what he did for his team in the matches where he didn't score. And many of the strikers that history will show an incredible number of goals that they score, plus zero."

Tottenham have amassed 17 points from their opening eight games and could have more had they not conceded last-gasp equalisers against Newcastle United and West Ham United, the latter having been 3-0 ahead.

Since that the meltdown against West Ham they have won three successive league games despite not being at their best against Burnley, Brighton and Hove Albion and West Brom.

Tougher tests await after the international break with a run of games against Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool, but Mourinho says his side have toughened up.

"I am not going to say we are not going to lose matches or lose points in the last minutes, it can happen to anyone," the Portuguese said. "We felt the pain against West Ham and since then strategically the team is behaving in a different way.

"The two clean sheets at Burnley and this afternoon showed the lesson -- a team in the last five minutes that was very solid, it looked like the pain made a positive effort and the team improved after that."