Pep Guardiola refused to discuss Manchester City transfer target Harry Kane before Sunday’s Premier League opener against Tottenham.
The reigning top-flight champions remain very eager to sign the wantaway England captain, who is hoping for a breakthrough in talks after this weekend’s showdown in north London.
Guardiola publicly addressed the pursuit of Kane before the Community Shield defeat by Leicester at Wembley last week, confirming City’s interest but insisting that there was no deal to be done if Tottenham were unwilling to negotiate.
However, the Spaniard did not want to discuss the subject at all during his latest press conference on Friday.
“I answered this question the previous press conference. He’s a player from Tottenham, I’m not going to talk about him,” Guardiola said.
“I made an exception last time, usually I don’t talk about transfers.”
It remains to be seen if Kane will feature for Tottenham on Sunday against the club he wants to join this summer.
The Premier League Golden Boot holder only returned to group training with Spurs on Friday after working individually and quarantining at the club’s Enfield base following his return from holidays in Florida and the Bahamas last weekend.
Guardiola’s Tottenham counterpart Nuno Espirito Santo revealed earlier on Friday afternoon that he would make a late decision on Kane’s potential involvement after a final pre-match training session to be held on Saturday.
“Harry joined the group today, he trained, we had a talk. Of course it’s a private conversation but everything is OK,” Nuno said.
“He’s preparing himself, like [new signings] Bryan [Gil], like [Cristian] Romero, players that joined us later. We have to be careful but everything’s OK.
“We still have the session tomorrow to decide on players that don’t have too many sessions with us. We have to think and we still have the day of tomorrow to make decisions.”
