The first eight weeks of the 2015 2016 Premier League season have posed several big questions. Why are Chelsea performing so poorly? Will Liverpool be better off with a replacement manager? Did Manchester City overpay for Raheem Sterling? Perhaps the biggest curiosity of all, though, is what in the world happened to Kane over the summer hiatus, and what is causing the Harry Kane goal drought?

Last season, Harry Kane wasn't just Tottenham Hotspur's most dependable scorer; he was one of the most dependable scorers in the entire league. He was the breakout star of the season, netting 21 goals in 34 league appearances. In cup and continental play, he added an extra 10 goals. He wasn't the top scorer in the English top-flight: that title belonged to Manchester City's Sergio Aguero, with 26 points to his name. But Kane was the second most prolific scorer in the league, and his young age-he turned 22 in July-had soccer pundits speculating about the great, great things he could do in the future.

A Limp Season Start

It's still entirely possible that Harry Kane will go on to do great things in the future. Unfortunately for
fans in the Tottenham Hotspur home jersey 2015 2016, it's becoming increasingly unlikely that any of those great things are going to happen this season.

Indeed, eight games into the 2015 2016 Premier League campaign, the Spurs are languishing in eighth place-down three slots from where they finished last season. All things considered, Tottenham Hotspur aren't doing badly: they've managed to escape the first fifth of the season with just one loss. That statistic is notable, given the fact that Manchester City-the current league leaders-have already conceded two losses, one of them against the Spurs.

Still, there's no doubt that Tottenham would be in far better shape if Harry Kane were playing like he did last season. The 22-year-old striker has only netted a single goal in eight league appearances. In fact, throughout the first six games of the season, Kane was experiencing a demoralizing goal drought. He finally broke through and scored in Hotspur's September 26th match against Manchester City-a game that the Spurs won, surprisingly, with a 4-1 advantage. Even with Kane's true goal drought over, though, the young Premier League star still has a few kinks to work out in his game.

For instance, Kane was to blame for Tottenham's 2-2 draw against Swansea City on October 4th. The Spurs led the match in possession and shots on goal, and midfielder Christian Eriksen scored an impressive brace that should have earned a victory. But an embarrassing own goal from Kane-where he tried to clear the goal line, but ended up sending the soccer ball straight into the top of the net-resulted in a tie.

The Loss of Mojo: What's the Reason for It?

The question is, what precisely is happening to Harry Kane and why has he seemingly lost all his mojo this season? Is it pressure? Did last season's impressive goal tally put the young attacker in a place where
he felt like he had to live up to his own potential? Or has Harry's bad performance simply dampened his confidence to the point where he can't pull himself out of the rut?

In all honesty, Kane's problem is probably some mixture of the above explanations. The confidence issue is always a problem for strikers in goal droughts. One example would be Peter Crouch, who currently plays for Stoke City, but previously spent time with Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur, and Aston Villa-among other clubs. In his first months with Liverpool in 2005, Crouch went 19 games, four months, and more than 24 hours of football without scoring a goal. When he finally broke the drought, in a December 3rd match against Wigan Athletic, he scored not one goal, but two. The first goal helped him regain his confidence on the football field, and he went on to score 13 goals that season.

Since Harry Kane has scored now, he should be at a point where he can look forward and improve, instead of looking back and languishing in his early-season failures. But could the dismal own goal he scored in the October 4th match against Swansea set him back a few steps?