Harry Kane has hailed Antonio Conte as a "great man" and has wished him all the best for the future following his Tottenham exit at the end of March. Appointed in the hotseat in November 2021, the Italian guided Spurs to a Champions League finish last season but results have been extremely up and down in the 2022/23 campaign.
After dropping points at Southampton just prior to the international break after surrendering a two-goal lead late on, Conte hit out at his players in an explosive press conference at St Mary's. Reflecting on the 53-year-old's exit and what he said at Southampton, Kane has admitted that it was an "emotional moment" as they should have won the game on the south coast after conceding two poor goals.
"Obviously I wish Antonio all the best. I had a great relationship with him and it was just unfortunate that for one reason or another it didn't quite work," said the England captain. "I wish him luck in his next adventure and in the meantime we'll continue to fight with Cristian, Ryan and the staff and try and achieve what we set out to."
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On Conte's eye-opening press conference at St Mary's Kane added: "I'm not going to get into that. It was an emotional moment after we should have won the game and to concede two goals in the way we did we were all disappointed. He's a great man, his emotions come out at times and that's who he is and he owns that.
"Us players, we talk amongst ourselves to keep fighting and keep improving. We know that Southampton game, we know the Everton game last week we need to do better in those moments when we're leading. Overall, all we can do is keep trying to fight and that's what we'll do."
Kane has been in the headlines over the past week following Abdoulaye Doucoure's red card in last Monday's 1-1 draw with Everton at Goodison Park. The striker was widely condemned for going to ground after the Toffees midfielder has raised a hand into his face.
Amid plenty of criticism coming his way, Kane has finally opened up on the incident and stated people will always have their opinions.
"I'm good. I've not heard anyone say it was not a red card," he admitted. "At the end of the day that's football, that's the way it goes and people have their opinions. My focus was on trying to help the team in this game and that's what I did."
Bouncing back from that late draw at Everton with a 2-1 win over Brighton & Hove Albion on Saturday, Tottenham picked up a crucial three points that could prove huge in their battle for Champions League football. Certainly not pretty at times with Brighton, who had two goals ruled out, impressing across the 90 minutes, Kane has heaped praise on the team for showing "grit" and ensuring they came away with the points after squandering leads in their past two league fixtures.
"Those points always feel a little bit better when you kind of grind them out," he confessed. "Brighton are a really good team, they play some good football and they had their fair share of chances and so did we. I felt like in that second half it was just going to be the moment who was going to take their chance and we did that.
"After we had to show some grit, some good defending and that's what we've needed to get better at over the last few games. A really important win for us, for the fans and everyone because we have Bournemouth next week and then we go into a really tough week against teams around us in the league."
Now trailing both Newcastle United and Manchester United by three points, with both of their rivals having one game in hand, all Tottenham can do is show some fight, win their games and hope that both slip up along the way.
"There has been a lot of noise around us this season and we know especially in all competitions we probably haven't been as good as we want to be," said Kane. "The bottom line is we're still in a position to get top four and it's important for the club. We know we need to improve, we know there are areas where we need to get better at.
"For this season now until the end of the season all we can do is fight with what we have. We've got a few injuries that hopefully are coming back soon. That's what we have to do. We can't think about the past, about the future, it's about doing what we can now and that's what we'll try to do now."
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