Hodgson believes Spurs are not ‘better’ without Harry Kane but are ‘pretty good at the moment’

Crystal Palace manager Roy Hodgson says Tottenham are “pretty good at the moment” but does not think they are a better side without Harry Kane.

High-flying Spurs travel to Selhurst Park on Friday night looking for their fourth consecutive victory following Monday’s win over Fulham, while Palace hope to bounce back quickly from Saturday’s crushing 4-0 defeat at Newcastle.

Some have even gone as far as to suggest Spurs’ early season success, taking 23 points from their first nine matches, has been a direct result of other players being inspired to step up in the wake of Kane’s £100million departure for Germany, but Hodgson vehemently rejects that position.

Hodgson, who lost his own former talisman when Wilfried Zaha signed for Turkish side Galatasaray this summer, said: “No. With the respect I have for Harry Kane and knowing the absolute quality and what that man’s achieved in football, I’m not certain I can subscribe to a theory where we’ve lost a player of his quality but now we’re better. I’m not sure about that.

“I mean they’re pretty good at the moment without him, but I would probably say they would have been even better still with him, so I don’t subscribe to that particularly.

“I don’t doubt for one minute that with the way Ange has introduced his philosophy to the players and got them playing the way he thinks that they should play, I don’t have any doubts that Harry Kane would have embraced that, would have fitted in very, very well.”

Premier League Predictions Week 10: Robbie Savage calls Manchester derby and more Spurs joy

Hodgson first encountered Ange Postecoglou when both were in charge of their national teams and the Australian brought his side to Sunderland’s Stadium of Light for a pre-Euro 2016 friendly.

In the end it was a 2-1 victory for Hodgson’s side, thanks in part to 18-year-old Marcus Rashford, who became the youngest player to score on their England debut with his opener.

The following year it was Hodgson on a plane destined for Down Under, en route to Melbourne for a short-term contract to advise A-League side Melbourne City where he was further impressed by what he saw from the Socceroos boss.

While some have made a bigger deal about an Australian making his way into – and so far succeeding in – the English top flight following spells with Yokohama F Marinos and Celtic, Hodgson believes all the pointing to Postecoglou’s passport is overblown.

He said: “It depends on what you mean by adaptation to the Premier League. I think needing time to adapt to the Premier League is more relevant to players than coaches or managers.

“I think sometimes they do, especially when they come from a different country, come from abroad, a totally different culture, because of the intensity of the Premier League, the fierceness, the lack of time and space that’s there for you and the physicality, that can be very different to a player.

“Coming from Celtic, playing in front of 60,000 or 70,000 people every week, being in the Champions League, coaching Australia, being at the very best club in Japan, I don’t know if you need a lot of adaptation to come to the Premier League.

“He might have been a bit of an unknown or a surprise to a lot of people in the country, but he certainly was no surprise to me.”

READ MORE: Harry Kane has actually scored precisely zero proper goals for England