Man City may go all out to complete Harry Kane transfer as Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United send warning to Pep Guardiola with impressive opening day wins

Man City may start to think about signing Harry Kane ‘a lot harder’ after watching Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United impress on the opening weekend of the 2021/22 Premier League season.

The trio sent a message to the reigning champions with convincing wins, while Pep Guardiola’s side stuttered to a 1-0 defeat at Tottenham.

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City cantered to the title last season, but may find their task of retaining their crown a lot harder this campaign.

Goals seem to be a particular problem of late now all-time top scorer Sergio Aguero has joined Barcelona on a free transfer.

City have now lost their last three games 1-0 with the last time they failed to score in three games in March 2016.

They have been chasing Kane all summer, but have so far been unwilling to meet Daniel Levy’s £160million price tag.

Speaking on Sunday morning, former Chelsea striker Tony Cascarino told talkSPORT: “I know it’s only one game and it’s early doors, there was a lot of evidence over the weekend of Chelsea, Liverpool and Man United in their performances that will make City think about this Kane deal a lot harder.

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“It’s only one game in, but they all looked like really good sides. 

“It was the standout feature of the day, for me, that Chelsea, Liverpool and Man United all performed.”

City have particularly struggled against Tottenham of late. In their last three away games at Spurs they have had 59 shots – 15 on target but have failed to score.

Back in 2017, Guardiola labelled the north London club the ‘Harry Kane team’. Since then, Spurs have beaten City four times at home and Kane has played just once.

Kane did not feature again on Sunday with Nuno Espirito Santo leading Tottenham to a 1-0 win over City.

Former Crystal Palace and Charlton midfielder Darren Ambrose told talkSPORT: “Today was a fantastic performance. Credit to Nuno who got a bit of criticism when he was brought into the football club. Brilliant performance.

“They need more. It’s a tongue in cheek comment that Tottenham don’t need Harry Kane. Anyone will want Harry Kane, but he’s not played and you also talk about the Champions League semi-final where [Lucas] Moura got a hat-trick and why didn’t he play in the final? Because Harry Kane came back.

“Sometimes that has stifled Tottenham a bit. Sometimes their sole way of playing was based around Harry Kane.

“We’ve seen that sometimes you don’t need that Harry Kane figure and you can go out with that togetherness and it gets you that result.”