Harry Kane called it an ‘honour’ to rival two of the ‘best players ever’ in Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo in terms of his goal-scoring exploits over the last year.

The England striker stole the show in Tottenham’s 5-2 mauling of Southampton at Wembley, scoring a brilliant hat-trick, but there was so much more to his day than that.

His first goal of the afternoon took him to 37 Premier League goals in 2017, surpassing Alan Shearer’s record from 1995 for the number of goals in a single calendar year.

Other records that he broke included becoming the first player to score six Premier League hat-tricks in a calendar year, as well as making himself the first to net successive hat-tricks on two separate occasions in the competition.

Those goals took him to 56 in 52 appearances for club and country in 2017, more than any other player in Europe’s top five leagues, something that Ronaldo and Messi have dominated in recent years.

And Kane is delighted to be in such esteemed company.

‘I’m very proud,’ Kane told Sky Sports. ‘Messi and Ronaldo have dominated football for so long and are two of the best players ever.

‘To be compared to them, or just be up there with them is a great honour.’

Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino congratulated his striker and again highlighted the fact that Kane has scored an amount of goals that Messi and Ronaldo would be proud of.

‘I think he deserves everything,’ Pochettino told Sky Sports. ‘In the last nine or 10 years it has been between Cristiano and Messi, but now his [Kane’s] name is there.

‘I’m so happy for him, also all the team because it was all as a unit, but its a fantastic achievement. I congratulate him. Well done.’

-This story originally appeared on FourFourTwo.co.za