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Harry Kane believes Tottenham have made some big ready-made signings this summer and is looking forward to doing "something special" with Antonio Conte at the helm.
Kane's summer has been a striking contrast to a year ago when the disenchanted striker wanted to leave the club as they struggled to show the ambition to match his. However, 12 months later and with Antonio Conte taking Tottenham back into the top four and the Champions League as well as a sixth new signing about to join up in Middlesbrough wing-back Djed Spence, a happy Kane is seeing a very different Spurs this time around.
When asked whether he had got last summer out of his system, Kane, who is on tour in South Korea with Spurs, said: "I’m just looking forward to the new season and looking forward to seeing what we can do.
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"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.
"It’s not the longest pre-season ever. It will only be a few weeks until that first game but that suits us. We’re working in the right direction. Hopefully we can use some momentum from the end of last season to take it into this year and keep pushing on."
With Spence expected to complete his move to Spurs within 24 hours, the club will add his name to a list of summer transfers that includes Ivan Perisic, Fraser Forster, Yves Bissouma, Richarlison and Clement Lenglet. Kane pointed to the ready-made nature of many of those players with their Premier League or top level experience as being key to the current excitement around the place and the fanbase.
"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," he said.
"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 gives Conte plenty of credit for his continued improvement, not least his physical development as he continues to work him hard. The striker has been pushed to the limit in his early days after returning to pre-season training and on Monday night he was seen throwing up by the side of the pitch after falling to the floor during the Italian's dreaded pitch-long runs to end gruelling two-hour sessions. Two days later and he was looking sharp and scoring twice as Spurs beat Team K-League 6-3 in a friendly in Seoul.
"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 added: "I think he’s just brought a real intensity to training every day. Every manager has different processes, different way of training, different types of a week schedule. Antonio likes to work, he likes to be out on the training on the pitch for however long he wants to and make sure we’re well prepared going into each game.
"I just feel like that I’m at that stage in my career where I want to keep pushing and keep improving. It was good to see how my fitness levels changed over that period when he first came in. It just made me want to continue that and do as much as possible as to keep improving."
Spurs now have two Premier League Golden Boot winners in their squad in Kane and Son Heung-min, who shared the prize with Mohamed Salah last season. Kane was asked whether he and the South Korean star have learned anything from each other's games.
"I’ve spoken very highly of Sonny over the years. We get on really well, a fantastic player," he said. "Our games and styles are different but we really complement each other well.
"We’re always learning new things, more so how we can help each other, not in terms of taking stuff from each other, but as always with great players, you learn things every day just training with them so I’m really enjoying our partnership and hopefully we can strengthen it even more this year."
Kane is hunting down Jimmy Greaves and Alan Shearer's goalscoring records at Tottenham and in the Premier League respectively on a club level while closing in on Wayne Rooney's record tally for England. For the 28-year-old, he's only focusing on trophies and those goals, records and silverware will come if the performances do.
"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."
Harry Kane was speaking at a girls football coaching event hosted by Nike and Active Modoo
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