There's a certain symmetry in the words Harry Kane has been using when speaking about Tottenham Hotspur this summer in contrast to previous years. Cast your mind back to 2020 and an Instagram Q&A with Sky Sports pundit Jamie Redknapp when Kane stated his position very clearly.
"I'll always love Spurs, but it's one of those things. I've always said if I don't feel like we’re progressing as a team or going in the right direction, I'm not someone to stay there just for the sake of it," said the England captain. "I'm an ambitious player, I want to improve and become better. I want to become a top, top player, so it all depends on what happens as a team and how we progress as a team. So, it’s not a definite 'I'm going to stay there forever' but it’s not a no either."
As Tottenham stumbled through a conveyor belt of managers in the following 16 months or so, Kane's patience began to dissolve and that brought the awkward summer of 2021 following the club's farcical managerial search. The striker wanted to leave, Spurs didn't want him to and Manchester City never really pushed hard enough to sign him.
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Enter Antonio Conte in November. The 52-year-old Italian swept through Tottenham with a broom of change and transformed not only Kane's fitness and mood but the entire way of thinking at a north London club that in the modern era has often hesitated and stumbled when on the cusp of taking the next step.
This summer brought a £150million cash injection by the owners, the 'sell before you buy' routine of old was ditched and six new signings walked through the door before the team had even played its third pre-season friendly. Five of them are ready-made top level performers with plenty of experience and the most recent new recruit, 21-year-old Djed Spence, while being more of a typical Spurs signing with potential, was bought specifically to suit Conte's wing-back requirements and is someone the Italian told football.london "has shown he can become an important player for us".
Yet more new signings are expected before the transfer window closes in more than a month's time, because Spurs have put all of their eggs in Conte's basket and they are showing the ambition Kane has always called for to match his own. When he spoke after Saturday's 2-1 pre-season win at Rangers the striker spoke about the club's direction again as he did in 2020, but this time in far more glowing terms.
"We look good. We've had some great additions, we've been working hard. The manager has been fantastic and all the staff. We've got a great team but as always you have to take that into the season. It's a long old year. It's not just about August or September, it's a marathon and we have a World Cup in between that as well," he said to SpursPlay. "There's a lot to go on but the squad looks great. Everyone is moving in the right direction and there's a really good feeling amongst the fans and amongst us so it's down to us now and start the season well."
football.london reported back in May that not only was Kane settled and enjoying life under Conte but that if the club showed ambition this summer then he would be happy to discuss a new contract, with just two years left on his current one. That ambition has been displayed this summer in keeping Conte and signing six new players and Kane is understood to be open to talks, but at this point amid their busy summer Spurs have not yet approached Kane's camp with an offer of a new deal.
The player and Tottenham's renewed happiness mean an offer is expected to eventually arrive and he is front and centre with Son Heung-min in everything they are doing as a club.
Last season, particularly in the early months, Kane was not made available for interview to the media at club level, no doubt due to the events of the preceding summer. This year has been very different with a relaxed England captain speaking to journalists out in South Korea during the club's tour with the belief apparent that this finally might be the time to do what he's always wanted - win something with Spurs.
"I’m just looking forward to the new season and looking forward to seeing what we can do," he said out there. "It’s a big season. We’ve made some big signings, early signings which is great. We haven’t won a trophy in a long time. We haven’t been at the level we know we can in the last two or three years, although we’ve done really well to get a Champions League spot. That gave everyone a good boost around the whole club, and an incentive to go and push on this season. We’ve got that to look forward to but there’s still work to do before the start of the new season.
"It’s been a great pre-season so far. I've been back five or six days and it’s been a really good camp. We’ve worked really hard. We’ve got some new singings, some new faces, there's a buzz about the place. It’s been difficult at times in certain sessions but it's been good and everyone’s excited for the season."
On the new signings, he added: "I know there’s excitement among the fans and rightly so, there always is going into any season. It helps with preparation, it helps knowing these guys have been there and done it and got good experience in the Premier League or around the best clubs in Europe, and they’re here to help.
"We need a big squad if we’re going to compete at the highest level in all four competitions. When you look at last season, we were getting down to bare bones and it’s great to bulk up the squad with great players. there’s some great competition for places."
Kane looks sharp and he's already netted five goals in three pre-season friendly matches so far. It's clear that Conte is a big fan of the striker and on Saturday he swatted away talk of Bayern Munich being interested in the forward.
"The situation at Tottenham is very clear. The plan is very clear with the club. Harry is a part of the project. He is a very important part of the project and yeah only rumours," he said before calling such talk from the German club as "disrespectful".
The Conte admiration is clearly mutual from Kane.
"Antonio has been fantastic. I’ve learned from every manager I’ve worked under. Antonio has probably taken fitness levels to another level for me," said the forward. "The mentality, being with him every day seeing the way he prepares, the way he brings his passion and brings the best out of the lads, I’ve learnt from that.
"I feel like I’m learning every year anyway and getting more experience and getting better, but with someone like Antonio it’s speeding up that process even quicker. I feel in good shape. There’s still work to do in the next month in this pre-season. I feel like I’ve still got a lot more to give and hopefully I can show that next year."
He is hunting down Jimmy Greaves and Alan Shearer's respective Tottenham and Premier League goal-scoring records, while closing in on Wayne Rooney's record tally for England, but now the striker, who turns 29 on Thursday, feels that trophies might finally be on the horizon as well.
"For me it’s just to have another good year, another consistent year. Try and help the team as much as possible, try and score as many goals as I can. From the team’s point of view, it’s always to win trophies," he explained. "There’s a good buzz around the club at the moment but as always you have to go out there and perform and show what you can do when it’s crunch time. We haven’t quite done that over the years. Hopefully with this manager, this squad, we can really push on and try to do something special."
Kane is not alone in feeling Spurs can do something special this season. Eric Dier has been at the club for eight years and has seen the highs and lows. After the match in Glasgow at the weekend, he stated: "It's a different feeling to ones I've experienced here before, just because of the amount of signings before a pre-season and experiencing being a group that is such a strong squad already, a squad that feels built already. I think we can be excited but we also need to be extremely humble and keep working to try and get better."
Ben Davies, who penned a new three-year deal this week, also arrived at the club back in 2014 and he echoed Dier's words, saying: "After last season and the summer the club's just had, there's no more exciting time to be at this club."
What will excite Conte is that in his attack he's not only got Kane, but also a player in Son who is reaching the peak of his powers having turned 30 this month.
The world class duo have combined a record 41 times for goals in the Premier League and both have looked sharp in pre-season, with that link-up already in full effect. Son set up both of Kane's goals at Ibrox on Saturday as he did against Sevilla the previous weekend. Son had also won the free-kick Kane scored from against Team K-League just days earlier and netted twice himself on the evening in Seoul.
Son is in full flow right now and him sharing the Premier League Golden Boot with Mohamed Salah for his 23 goals in 35 matches last season - not a single penalty among them - has now finally helped more people outside of Spurs understand just how good he really is. Now when people look at Tottenham they do not see a "one man team", they see Son and Kane leading the line.
Rangers boss Giovanni van Bronckhorst stated at the weekend: "Kane and Son? They are like in the top five, top six strikers in the world. Not only in attack, but in transition moments with the speed that they have. I think we coped really well in moments in the game, but at moments you also see their quality. Especially in the second half."
Like Kane, Son is very happy with the Conte regime and this summer's tour to his homeland was a long-term winner not only commercially and from a marketing sense for the club but also in leaving its mark on the South Korea captain himself. When all of the players and club staff arrived at their hotel in Seoul, they discovered that Son had left gifts and personal notes in their rooms to thank them for coming to his home and making so many of his country's people happy.
"He deserves only great things in life," Lucas said of Son during the tour in Korea. "First of all, he’s a great human being, a great person and after he’s a great player, one of the best I’ve played with.
"Sonny is a bit different because he has all this [dedication] and he is a bit like me because he’s happy every day. He’s smiling. We can see he loves the game. He enjoys every training session, every game, he gives his all and I love him because of this. He’s like a Brazilian!"
A happy Son and Kane is something for others to fear and that's without mentioning Dejan Kulusevski, Lucas and new signing Richarlison, with Spurs expected to add at least one more new face to their attacking armoury before the transfer window closes.
Kane and Son are ready to give Conte everything they have and the Italian has been pushing them to new levels in training this summer. Kane was seen throwing up at the side of the pitch at the Seoul World Cup Stadium during one training session before pushing himself back into pitch-long runs and Son fell to the floor himself not long after before re-joining the group.
Both players have seen it all at Tottenham and they are fully aware that in the former Inter, Chelsea and Italy boss they have a man who can bring them the silverware their abilities deserve and they have fully invested in him.
Conte has big plans this season and Kane and Son are central to them. The duo are ready to hit the ground running, they're already sharp and in harmony - Premier League and Champions League defences beware.
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