Harry Kane

  • The Fighting Cock is a forum for fans of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. Here you can discuss Spurs latest matches, our squad, tactics and any transfer news surrounding the club. Registration gives you access to all our forums (including 'Off Topic' discussion) and removes most of the adverts (you can remove them all via an account upgrade). You're here now, you might as well...

    Get involved!

Latest Spurs videos from Sky Sports

LOL at Jordan Henderson, he looks like he has nothing in that head and is trying to get away.

TBH the FIFA cover looks terrible this year
 
Better than No.18
CMJKo85XAAAUJTX.jpg
 
That cover is a sad joke. A worried looking Henderson running on the heels of the real class, with a look on his face that says "oh noooo. He's going to make me look stoopid!"
 
Damn shame we couldn't wait another week or two before registering squad numbers, #9 is the right number for Kane.

Good luck Soldado, but your number is required.
 
Harry Kane: 'I want to become a Tottenham legend and change the image of players representing England'
Interview: Forget second-season syndrome - Kane has grabbed the No 10 shirt at Spurs and claims that he can only get better
kane_header_3408312b.jpg

Sky high: Kane wants to score even more goals for club and country this year. Photo: Telegraph


By Jason Burt, Chief Football Correspondent


So why, Harry Kane, did you decide to take the number 10 shirt at Tottenham Hotspur for this season? “I want to become a club legend,” Kane says.

The striker is sitting fresh from a tough morning of training – following on from a double-session the day before exacted by manager Mauricio Pochettino – in the first-floor gallery at Spurs’ gleaming training ground.

Kane is apologetic after being delayed a little by meetings and also lunch with his team-mates which over-ran as the conversation flowed.“The manager likes the team to be like a family,” he explains.

This is Kane’s first in-depth interview for the new season. A campaign in which he is determined to prove he is not – to use a phrase he raises – “a one-season wonder” – after 31 goals, a scoring England debut and a status acquired and embraced as the poster boy for the Football Association.

It was great. Except great, for Kane, will be when “I can look back in 15 years’ time and think last season was a good season in a great career not a great season in a good career”. The striker adds: “I just want to say ‘wow’ that was the beginning. It’s just a start.”

kane_debut_3408321b.jpg

Kane scored 21 league goals in his first full campaign for Spurs.

All eyes are on him. Can he sustain it? Is he good enough? “Fans are excited to see whether I can do it again – and I am excited to see if I can,” Kane, who has just turned 22, says.

“I was a fan myself and I know what it’s like. If someone comes out of the blocks and scores 31 goals in one season then you think ‘ok, was that a one-off or will he do it again?’

“I have a lot of self-belief and I think it will happen. I think I will just get better and better. It’s what great players do, they don’t let up on anything. And I wouldn’t do that anyway.”

But first that change of number. Kane was handed the number 18 shirt by Jermain Defoe when he left Spurs. The striker’s parting words were “there are goals in that shirt” and Kane has certainly maintained that. So why change to 10?

“It’s such an iconic number at Spurs,” Kane says. “When you look at the players who have worn it – Sheringham, Keane, Hoddle, Ferdinand, Greaves. When I was growing up Keane and Sheringham were my idols and they wore 10. So it was always my dream to wear it. Obviously 18 was great to me and Defoe gave it to me.

“But when I knew 10 was available I just wanted it. I love this club and to be wearing number 10 for Tottenham is amazing for me. I could not resist.”

kane_10_3408313b.jpg

Greaves, Hoddle, Sheringham- and now Kane have worn #10 for Tottenham.

Does it add to the pressure on him to perform? “That’s what I want,” Kane says. “I want to become a club legend. You are always going to face pressure in football. But I’m very strong-minded and I know what I want to achieve and taking that number 10 shirt was just another part of that.”

There is something extremely likeable about Kane as he prepares to face Stoke City, at home, on Saturday. It is not just his back-story, his appearance, with the slicked-back hair, the almost ‘throw-back-to-a-different-era’ look - and his exciting potential. There is candour and there is enthusiasm and he is one of those footballers who, immediately, people want to extend good will towards. People want Kane to succeed. He senses it himself.

“I think people appreciate the way I have come through and, obviously, with being young and English it makes a bit of a difference,” Kane says. “A lot of footballers nowadays have a bad image, for one reason or another, but I’m grounded. I think I’m a clean-cut guy, I’m close to my family and friends and people relate to that. I was a fan. Tottenham fans see me as ‘one of their own’ and that is genuinely a good feeling.”

Former players, great strikers, such as Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer, have also added to the chorus. They believe he can succeed. “It’s great to hear them talking about you,” Kane, speaking in his new role as an ambassador for BT Sport, says.

“It’s pretty strange also. Some of the compliments I had last season from some great former players were incredible. Some people might get nervous after that but I am the opposite – I use it. I don’t want to let them down, I want to prove them right, that it wasn’t just one season, that I can become better. It drives me on when I hear those ex-players talking like that.”

kane_england_3408323b.jpg

Kane scored on his England debut against Lithuania.

Kane inherited that number 10 shirt after it was taken away from Emmanuel Adebayor who, like Aaron Lennon, has not been assigned a squad number as Spurs continue their extensive clear-out. So far it is three in and 14 out as Pochettino pares down and builds his team around a younger core of talent led by Kane.

“This transfer window was really the first time the gaffer kind of put his own stamp on what he wanted to do,” he says. “He got rid of who he no longer wanted and brought in who he wanted. It’s exciting. We know his philosophy and what he wants and we need to keep working towards that and keep improving. Because we are young, we are probably one of the youngest teams in the Premier League, and we are not the finished article, so we are not getting ahead of ourselves. But the building blocks, the direction, are there.”

Kane feels strongly about the need for clubs to give young, home-grown talent a chance. He talks effusively about the debut, last weekend at Woolwich, of West Ham United’s 16-year-old Reece Oxford and believes managers should be braver.

“There is so much pressure on managers nowadays to sometimes go and buy a striker from France or Spain or Italy who has scored goals rather than take a chance on somebody who is under their noses and who might be better or as good as the one they are buying but who is not as proven,” he says.

“It isn’t always fair – as a young player if you are good enough you should be trusted. It shouldn’t just be if you are given one game and you don’t do well then that’s it. It should be five, 10 games and asking ‘how’s he getting on, what can he improve on?’ That’s what, as a country, we need to look at. There are players out there who just need that chance.

oxfor_3408328b.jpg

Kane believes Oxford's performance proves managers should be braver.

“So if I can be a role model – someone who convinces other managers to trust their young players – then that’s what I want to do. We are lucky here at Spurs we have me, Mason, Townsend, Rose and Bentaleb, who’s not English but who came through, so we have home-grown players. Then there is Harry Winks and Josh Onomah who are training with us and will probably get a chance this season. This manager believes in it.

“I’m happy to be that example. If I can make a difference for the younger players, for managers to trust English players, then that’s great. It’s what I want to do. I know what it’s like. I came through the system here, I went on loan (to Leyton Orient, Millwall, Norwich City, Leicester City), I came back, and, at times, it’s been real tough especially when I have been out on loan thinking ‘when is the time going to come for me?’

“If any young players wants to talk to me about it and asks ‘what’s the biggest thing?’ then it is self-belief – and a bit of patience. And when you do get that chance make sure you make an impression. Don’t go in there thinking you are like every other first-team player. Go and be something different. Be the player you are capable of being and never try and hide.”

No-one can accuse Kane of hiding. He has seized responsibility – he even captained Spurs on occasions last season and embraces that role. He wants, eventually, to have it permanently.

Kane did not make his first Premier League start until last November and has spent a summer being surrounded by speculation that Manchester United are prepared to make a £40million bid. He insists it has not been a distraction.

kane_bale_3408330b.jpg

"I want to find ways in which I can keep getting better."

“I’m happy. I’m focussed on what I do,” Kane says. “I’m happy at Tottenham which is a great club heading in the right direction. I’m excited and the season has started now, which is great, so I just want to get the games going, get into that rhythm and start scoring goals.”

Kane did not score at Old Trafford last Saturday in the 1-0 defeat but is unfazed. “I know that if I don’t score in the next two or three games people are going to asking ‘so is he that one-season wonder?’ but it’s part of it,” he says.

“I’m in no rush. You want to hit the ground running and want to score in every game but I’m not going to be panicking if I go a couple of games without scoring because I know there is a lot of time.

“Thirty-one goals is a lot of goals and I’m very proud of what I achieved last season. I just want to keep improving on the pitch, improving in training and try and be better. Hopefully I can score just as many and that will be great but, for me, now there is no panic.

“Defoe told me once ‘if I miss a chance then the odds are now in my favour to score the next one because the chances of missing two in a row are less than missing one’. And that’s what I try and take. If I miss, then the next one is more in my favour to score. It’s about little things like that.”

defoe_3408338b.jpg

Defoe gave Kane plenty of advice at the beginning of his career.

It was an outstanding season – including that debut goal for his country against Lithuania in a Euro 2016 qualifier with only his third touch – but it also ended in debate as to whether he should go to the Under-21 European Championships in the Czech Republic. Then there was the disappointment when England flopped.

But Kane was determined to be part of it. “It’s what I wanted to do,” he says. “Obviously I’d had a long season and people were advising different things but, and I know this might sound silly, I want to change the image the country has of players playing for England.

“Some fans think players don’t want to do it, have that perception, but if I can change it by doing what I did, by going to the Euros, then it’s what I want to do. England has such a passionate fan-base for football and I want to bring back that the fans appreciate the players, know what it means to the players and why they want to wear the shirt. Wearing that ‘Three Lions’ badge at the Under-21 tournament was an important experience for me even though it did not work out well.”

It was a rare set-back. “I know things have changed,” Kane says. “I’m going to find there is more attention on me, on and off the pitch. Off the pitch it’s just something we are getting used to – me, my family, my girlfriend. Even when I take the dog for a walk.

“On the pitch and defenders will know a bit more what to expect. But any top player has to deal with that. Look at the top players who score 20 goals year-in, year-out and they are top players because they find a way to do. That's what I want to do, find a way of getting better.”
 
“There is so much pressure on managers nowadays to sometimes go and buy a striker from France or Spain or Italy who has scored goals rather than take a chance on somebody who is under their noses and who might be better or as good as the one they are buying but who is not as proven."

:kaneshh:
 
Great article, thanks for posting

But this bit.....
“Defoe told me once ‘if I miss a chance then the odds are now in my favour to score the next one because the chances of missing two in a row are less than missing one’. And that’s what I try and take. If I miss, then the next one is more in my favour to score. It’s about little things like that.”
shows why Defoe took up football and not mathematics....
 
Back
Top Bottom