Harry Kane has hailed the impact that Antonio Conte and his coaching staff have had on his fitness levels.
A year can be a long time in football and that is certainly the case with Harry Kane, who was reportedly pushing to join Manchester City last summer (The Athletic).
The striker had a sluggish start to the 2021/22 campaign after Tottenham refused to sell him to City and looked a shadow of his former self until Conte arrived through the door in November.
The Italian’s arrival had a transformative effect on the 28-year-old, who had a strong second half of the campaign and helped Spurs secure Champions League qualification.
In fact, not since Mauricio Pochettino’s time at the club has the England captain looked as nimble and fit as he did during the final few months of last season.
Kane admitted that Conte has taken his fitness to ‘another level’ and that he has already learned a lot by working under the 52-year-old.
When asked about Conte’s influence on himself and the squad, the striker told Football.London: “Antonio has been fantastic.
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“I’ve learned from every manager I’ve worked under. Antonio has probably taken fitness levels to another level for me.
“The mentality, being with him every day seeing the way he prepares, the way he brings his passion and brings the best out of the lads, I’ve learnt from that.
“I feel like I’m learning every year anyway and getting more experience and getting better, but with someone like Antonio it’s speeding up that process even quicker.
“I feel in good shape. There’s still work to do in the next month in this pre-season. I feel like I’ve still got a lot more to give and hopefully, I can show that next year.
“I think he’s (Conte) just brought a real intensity to training every day. Every manager has different processes, different way of training, different types of a weekly schedule.
“Antonio likes to work, he likes to be out on the training on the pitch for however long he wants to and make sure we’re well prepared going into each game.
“I just feel like that I’m at that stage in my career where I want to keep pushing and keep improving. It was good to see how my fitness levels changed over that period when he first came in.
“It just made me want to continue that and do as much as possible to keep improving.”
Spurs Web Opinion
I have a strong suspicion that we are going to see Kane have the best goal return of his career during the 2022/23 season if he can stay injury free. The striker looked like he was back to his 2017/2018 levels in the second half of last season and I would not be surprised if he gets 30-plus league goals next season.
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