On one level, it was a statement of the obvious from Harry Kane. The Tottenham striker sat down with Sky Sports before his team’s Premier League game at Brighton on Wednesday night and, among other things, said he wanted to play Champions League football.
Context, though, is everything. This is Kane, the 28-year-old England captain, who said the same thing leading up to last summer, when he attempted to leave a club that could not offer him action in Europe’s elite competition for one that certainly could – and plenty else, besides.
Kane did not get a move to Manchester City and it is unclear whether the Premier League champions would push for him again at the end of this season – and not only because they found the negotiations so tortuous last time out.
Were Kane to have had a release clause in his Spurs contract, which expires in June 2024, like, say, Jack Grealish did in his deal at Aston Villa, the situation would have been different. Maybe it still can be. It is understood that the City hierarchy told Kane’s people to renegotiate with Spurs and get something written in – however difficult that may be.
But there is nothing at the moment and so there we are and here we are, with Kane looking at his team’s final 11 matches of the league season and hoping to drive a sequence that ends with them in the top four.
“Personally, you want to be in the best competitions in the world,” Kane told Sky. “My focus is on this year. Getting top four is the most important goal for us now. If we can get on a run, this is more than possible. That’s all I can control and that’s all the manager can control as well. Let’s see where we end up.”
There is one certainty. Kane will give everything to help his boyhood club back into the Champions League. But, beyond that, there is nothing and, in the event that Spurs fall short, it is easy to see another summer saga involving Kane.
The drums have started to beat, Kane’s reminder about where he wants to be coming as Antonio Conte faced familiar but insistent questions on Tuesday lunchtime about the future of his talisman. The Spurs manager was asked directly on two occasions whether the club needed to finish in the Champions League places to persuade Kane not to look elsewhere and there were further, more lateral attempts to get him to engage with the topic.
Conte’s stance was exactly the same as that of Kane. The focus is on the remaining games. And then we will see.
“In this moment, it is not important to speak about the future,” Conte said. “It is important to see the present because the present is more important. We have to try to get the best in these 11 games and then we will see. It is important to be focused on the present and we have a lot of time to sit around the table and then to speak about everything.
“At the end of the season – or [just] before then – everyone has to speak about their own vision. I speak about my vision, the club will speak about theirs, [Fabio] Paratici [the managing director of football] will speak about his and then we will see. Now it is too early. For sure, there will be a moment when we will go to take decisions.”
Conte’s vision remains clear. He wants to be able to compete and win trophies. He even suggested that he only needed to feel “one per cent to win the title or a trophy in which we participate” for him to have something to get behind, although, as ever, there was a threat. “I stop if the vision of someone is not the same,” Conte said.
It is doubtful whether Conte’s future beyond the summer has ever not been a thing since his arrival at Spurs last November. He is contracted to June 2023, albeit there is an option to extend. But what happens next with Kane is set to be debated with increasing ferocity. The questions will not go away, even if Spurs have shown that, with Kane’s years of contract working on their side, they will not be pushed around.
There is the sense that Kane may have missed the boat with City. They are resolved to sign a centre-forward this summer to help Pep Guardiola in what the club expect will be his final season with them; his deal runs out at the end of it. But it would be as much a move for the longer term and the manager after Guardiola, who may rely more on a specialist No 9. Borussia Dortmund’s Erling Haaland – at 21 years old, the coming star – has been linked heavily to City.
What about Manchester United, who have Mauricio Pochettino on the shortlist to become their next permanent manager? Pochettino worked productively with Kane when he was in charge at Spurs. Then again United are hardly assured of Champions League football next season.
Kane and Conte talked about how they feel that Spurs are getting better, with the former giving plenty of credit to the latter. “I definitely feel like I’m improving and the team is with Antonio,” Kane said. “That motivates you to be even better. Hopefully we can end the season and give the top four a real go.”
Then we will see.
