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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Sport
Dan Kilpatrick

Harry Kane eyes Alan Shearer goal record and warns Tottenham rivals he’s still getting better

Harry Kane immediately set his sights on Alan Shearer's Premier League goal record after becoming Tottenham's all-time top scorer - and says he is still getting better and better.

Kane's 267th Spurs goal took him beyond Jimmy Greaves as the club's record scorer and earned a hard-fought 1-0 win over Manchester City.

The England captain's 15th-minute strike was also his 200th goal in the Premier League, leaving him just 60 shy of Shearer's record.

"It's always there in the back of my mind but I just take it game by game, season by season," Kane told Standard Sport. "It's definitely there to be broken and I'm feeling good and feeling fit, so we'll see what happens.

"It's been an amazing journey. I've been here since I was 11 years old, it's 18 years of my life - a lot of hard work and dedication.

"I'm extremely proud to represent this club. To score 267 goals and 200 Premier League goals for them is something I'll never take for granted. I've just got to keep it going and score as many as I can.

"I feel like probably my strongest asset as a player is my brain. The more games I play, the more experience I get and I only get stronger, so I'm in a good place."

Kane is not sure if he can remember all 267 goals but he has not forgotten his first - on December 15, 2011 in a 4-0 away win at Shamrock Rovers in the Europa League.

"I don't know [if I remember every one] but if you told me the game I could probably tell you the type of goal," he said. "Every goal is special in a different way and scoring goals never gets old. It's one of the greatest feelings I'll ever feel.

"I remember my first goal like it was yesterday. That was 11 years ago now so time goes quick and there's been a lot of ups and downs on the way since. I'm extremely grateful to a lot of people to still be here and performing and scoring goals like that last night.

"I dreamed of playing for Tottenham but being Tottenham's all time top goalscorer is not something I was thinking about back then," he added. "It was just about trying to get in the team and play and, when I did, it was just about trying to be consistent and perform every year, improve every year. I'm still only 29 so I still feel like I've got room for improvement and that's what I'll try to do for the rest of my career."

Top scorer: Harry Kane moved past the late Jimmy Greaves as Spurs’ top goal-getter ever (AFP via Getty Images)

Kane picked out two goals against Arsenal - his second in the 2-1 win in February 2015 and fine curling strike in a 2-2 draw in March 2016 - as his two best but says his breakthrough performance was in the 5-3 win over Chelsea on New Year's Day 2015.

"Chelsea at the time were one of the best teams in Europe, they were top of the Premier League," he said. "I'd done well before then, I'd scored goals against other teams but I hadn't done it against a big team yet.

"And not just my goals but the whole performance, it was one of my best performances in a Spurs shirt. That gave me the confidence I needed to know that I could do it against any team, on any stage. That was the moment that I felt like, 'OK, I'm here to stay'. I just had to make sure I was consistent and stayed working hard, and that's what I've tried to do."

Despite being without head coach Antonio Conte, who was in Italy recuperating from surgery, Spurs battled impressively to record a fifth straight home win against the champions and Kane says they have now "set the standard" for the rest of the campaign.

"After the City away game when we conceded four in the second half, we had a chat amongst ourselves and spoke about getting back to what we're good at, being compact, and we did that against Fulham away and we did that again on Sunday," he said.

"That's the standard - if we can do it against one of the best teams in the league, we can do it against anyone. So they are the standards we've set now. We need to try not to fall below them in any game.

"It's obviously been a difficult week, we're all happy his [Conte’s] surgery went well and he's recovering well. Whenever you haven't got your coach there, it's never easy.

"We showed we're a unit, a team. It was the type of performance where we knew what we had to do. It wasn't going to be easy at times. We had to dig deep and really suffer and be together. I thought throughout the whole team everyone showed 110 per cent commitment. I'm sure the gaffer was proud and we can be proud of that."

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