Harry Kane v Robert Lewandowski: Who is the better striker?

Tottenham Hotspur and Bayern Munich lock horns in the Champions League group stage this week, meaning two of Europe's sharpest shooters go head to head.

Harry Kane and Robert Lewandowski have shouldered the goalscoring burden for their respective clubs in recent seasons but who is the better striker?

Finishing

Coming out on top in career minutes-per-goal and having reached 20 league goals in seven of the last eight seasons, Robert Lewandowski surely ranks in the top five finishers in world football.

He seems to be getting better with age as well, having reached double figures in goals scored after only six Bundesliga fixtures this term.

Kane arguably has more to his game but the prolific Pole is a born poacher and remains the highest-scoring non-German in Bundesliga history. Make that 1-0 to the Bayern Munich man.

Verdict: Lewandowski

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Penalties

Those less familiar with the Bundesliga may expect this to be a comfortable victory for spot-kick specialist Kane.

The English forward's penalty record is impressive, having notched 34 of the 41 he has taken for club and country throughout his career.

But Lewandowski betters that record, scoring 47 of the 52 penalties he has taken. He has missed from the spot only twice since August 2014.

That gives him a 90 per cent success record compared to Kane's 83 per cent and the fact the Polish marksman has never missed one in the Champions League highlights his mental resilience under pressure.

Verdict: Lewandowski

Aerial threat

It would be fair to say this is not the strongest part of either player's game. Both are more comfortable notching with either foot than with a bullet header and they are tough to separate in the statistics as well.

Of Kane's 130 Premier League goals, 18 have been headers and ten of them came in his first three seasons at Tottenham.

That means 14 per cent of his goals have been scored in this way - the same percentage as his Polish counterpart, who has found the net 212 times in Germany's top flight with 30 coming from headers.

Verdict: Draw

Team ethic

This is a comfortable win for England captain and natural leader Kane, although Lewandowski enhanced his reputation in Bayern Munich’s recent Bundesliga encounter with Cologne.

With the Pole having already notched twice, the Bavarians were awarded a penalty and therefore an opportunity for him to bag a hat-trick and a record-breaking tenth Bundesliga goal in five games.

But instead he gave the ball to new signing Philippe Coutinho to score and boost his confidence.

Lewandowski still has work to do to become a more team-orientated player but that was a step in the right direction. Kane, though, dubbed an “unselfish player” by Gareth Southgate before last year’s World Cup, wins this one.

Verdict: Kane

Hold-up play

With wife Anna a renowned nutritionist and dubbed 'The Body' for his dedication to the gym during his time at Borussia Dortmund, Lewandowski has put plenty of work into becoming a stronger, more physically imposing forward.

But his poacher instincts mean you are more likely to find him taking up a position in the penalty area than dropping deep to hold up the ball and introduce more players into the game.

This is, however, a crucial component to Kane's game. He was fouled 34 times in the Premier League in 2018-19, the sixth-highest tally in the league, despite missing ten games through injury.

More often than not this happens when he is isolated in the final third, battling off two or three defenders to lay the ball off to Tottenham's Heung-Min Son or Lucas Moura. The Spurs man wins this round and draws level at 2-2.

Verdict: Kane

Performances in big games

This is a tough comparison to make given Kane's strongest opponents in the Premier League are far better than the best teams Lewandowski comes up against in the Bundesliga.

That said, the stats still favour Bayern Munich's main man. In the nine league matches he played against top-six opponents last season Kane mustered just the four goals, two of which were penalties.

Injury restricted his involvement in the Champions League but he failed to score in the semi-final home leg against City and the final against Liverpool, in which he mustered only one shot.

Lewandowski meanwhile carried Bayern Munich during their short time in the Champions League, with only Lionel Messi bettering his tally of eight goals in the competition, and he scored braces in both crucial league meetings with Borussia Dortmund.

Verdict: Lewandowski

Summary

Bayern Munich chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge knew a thing or two about scoring and believes Kane and Lewandowski are "perhaps the world's best centre-forwards at the moment".

Lewandowski wins 3-2 overall. Both forwards rank among the best of their generation and are different breeds of striker.

Age and experience must be taken into consideration, with Kane five years younger, but the breakdown of key attributes just favours the Pole.

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