Amid the hilarity of Harry Kane’s performance against Arsenal and his complete no-show this season, it occurred to me that Manchester City have, yet again, disturbed a rival player to the point of crippling him.

Harry Kane, who hasn’t scored a non-penalty goal at the Emirates since 2015 (and that was his only one) has scored just one goal in the Premier League this season in nine attempts.

It’s not like him at all and on Saturday, against Manchester United when Tottenham failed to register a shot at home for the first time since 2013, the fans in the stadium turned on him:

By this stage last season, Kane had seven goals in his first nine league games, the two seasons before five in each.

He is averaging just a little over one shot on target per game, except against Palace and United when he got none. In fact, his figures are only that high because of his four shots on target against Villa. Take those out and Harry Kane has had a shot on target six times in eight games.

To demonstrate how truly terrible that is, Thomas Partey has three shots on target and he’s awful at shooting. Alexandre Lacazette, who has played 198 league minutes to Harry Kane’s 738, has managed five.

Against Arsenal, not only did he assist (twice) with Bukayo Saka’s goal to make it 3-0, he also looked a shadow of the player we have come to despise.

And it all seems so familiar.

In the summer of 2017, Manchester City wanted Alexis Sanchez, Alexis Sanchez wanted to move to City and Arsenal, despite stating otherwise publicly, were prepared to sell him to Pee Guardiola.

We waited all summer, but nothing happened.

Every day, the papers seemed filled with talk that City were going to make a bid. But they didn’t, not until deadline day when Arsenal had simply no chance to sign a replacement.

Alexis was apparently so sure of a deal going through, David Ornstein reported that he’d told his friends he was off to Manchester City, although that requires us to believe he has friends who aren’t Atom and Humber.

City gambled that they could lowball Arsenal on the last day of the window and Arsenal, rather than keep an unhappy player, would cave in.

They didn’t, and Alexis threw a strop from which he has never recovered.

Arsenal ended up having to ship him off to Manchester United as soon as the next window opened.

Despite Gooner fears, Alexis was even worse at Old Trafford than he had been at Arsenal in his last six months with Arsenal.

Still at Inter Milan, the Chilean has been told he can leave for free as soon as a club willing to pay his wages can be found.

The same thing happened at Manchester United.

Harry Kane is a better player than Alexis, who only really enjoyed one mega-season on the goal front.

He should recover from this, but a lot depends on if he wants to.

That sounds odd, but it’s hard to want to do things for people you feel have wronged you in some way.

I’m not overly sure how Kane might think Spurs have wronged him after offering him a six-year deal, that he willing signed with no clause that would allow him to escape early, but that certainly seems to be how he’s playing at the minute.

Long may it continue.