Harry Kane was ready to swap Tottenham for Manchester City in 2021, according to the man who shared a dressing room with him for England.
Kyle Walker has disclosed that Kane, then Tottenham's talisman, made his feelings plain during City's pursuit of a striker that summer. The former City defender says Kane asked him about the club and delivered a blunt message: "I want to come."
"He said, 'I want to come,'" Walker revealed.
Walker's account paints a picture of a player who had grown tired of individual accolades and wanted team silverware. He said Kane had reached a point in his career where club trophies were the priority, and that a switch to the Etihad appealed for that reason.
City had made Kane their primary attacking target in the summer of 2021, with Pep Guardiola looking to bolster a squad that had just reclaimed the Premier League title but lost the Champions League final to Chelsea. The move, Walker suggested, was "very close" — though he was careful to stress that Kane never gave him a guarantee it would happen. In the end, the two clubs could not find an agreement.
Guardiola later confirmed the scale of the effort, revealing that City had gone back four times for Kane, only for Tottenham to reject every approach.
Kane stayed in north London for the 2021/22 campaign and scored 17 Premier League goals as Tottenham secured Champions League football. City, meanwhile, retained the title without a conventional first-choice centre-forward for much of the season.
The following summer brought Erling Haaland from Borussia Dortmund, and the Norwegian's 52 goals in all competitions helped deliver a Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League treble in his first season.
Kane finally left Tottenham in August 2023, joining Bayern Munich, where he has since established himself as one of the Bundesliga's leading forwards. Whether the move to City would have worked out quite so spectacularly is a question only Kane can answer.