Antonio Conte believes Harry Kane’s future should be a discussion for another day as he is busy building “something for the present” with Tottenham Hotspur. In an interview this week the 28-year-old striker expressed is excitement about working with one of the world’s best managers in the Italian, but would not be drawn on his future beyond this season at Tottenham.
Harry Kane said: “He’s one of the best managers in the world. We’ve not really reached the heights we’ve wanted to as a club over the last couple of years. It’s a big opportunity now to take advantage of what we’ve got.He’s a manager that demands a lot. He’s doing everything he can and as players we’ve responded really well to him and everyone’s working as hard as possible to get success. That’s the ultimate goal for everyone here at the club.”
On his own future,
Harry Kane added: “My focus is fully on this season and trying to get as high up the league as possible. We’re still in the FA Cup and we’re trying to win a trophy. I’m not going to go into loads of detail about anything else going on. It’s just about working hard for the team and trying to improve.”
Conte was asked whether he had spoken to Kane about his long-term future at Tottenham, with the striker originally having wanted to leave the club in the summer.
Antonio Cote said: “Harry has shown to the club a great commitment and he shows every day a great attitude, a great behaviour and we are talking about a world class striker and a fantastic player. If you saw the goal he scored against Leicester the assist he made for the Bergwijn goal, you understand the quality and the value of this player. Apart from this we are talking about a really good guy, an honest person and a person who wants to work hard to improve. You can think this is normal but sometimes you can find players with great talent but lazy but doesn’t want to put themselves to the service of the team. Instead Harry has all this quality. I am really surprised in a positive way to see this characteristic of the play. Then as you know very well, now it is important to be focused on the present. To look too much forward is not good because now we have to build something in the present and be together with the right will, with the right desire to work very hard and try to improve our situation, this is the most important thing in this moment.”
Spurs are set to welcome another big player back soon in summer signing Cristian Romero and Conte said the Argentina international is almost ready.
Antonio Conte said: “Cristian Romero, I am pleased because I am seeing now he is almost 100 per cent fit and he is very very close to coming back and for sure after the international break he is available to play and help us. We are talking about another important player for us. He missed two months, despite this I see in a positive way, I have seen the improvement of players like Ben Davies, Davinson Sanchez, Japhet Tanganga and I think we exploited this period without Cristian and saw the improvement of these three central defenders. I want to see the positive way about the injury of Cristian but now he is ready and after the international break he will play again and this is good news for us.”