Ryan Sessegnon: ‘Nobody is superhuman but you can try to be as close as possible to it’

Ryan Sessegnon, who opened the scoring for Tottenham against Southampton, hopes he can be a regular threat from wing-back. Photograph: Harriet Lander/Getty Images

The most exacting element of Antonio Conte’s notorious pre-season programme, in the face of stern competition, was put into place during a spell of 30C heat in Seoul. Tottenham had trained for two hours and then, cajoled by the fitness coach, Gian Piero Ventrone, were told to run 42 lengths of the World Cup Stadium pitch. Anyone whose June had been eaten into by international duty was let off with a mere 30; Ryan Sessegnon was not among those blessed with such fortune.

“I knew it was going to be tough but it was worse than I thought,” he says in reference to the blistering intensity demanded during Spurs’ preparations. “Those 42 runs in Korea, the amount of running, it was crazy. I wasn’t being sick like a few of the players were, but I was on my knees.”