Spurs stars Harry Kane, Eric Dier and Toby Alderweireld have been looking at the bigger picture despite receiving a 3-0 thumping from City last night in Nashville in Tottenham’s final International Champions Cup game of the pre-season.
City were rampant and Spurs were second best for the majority of last night’s game, and Tottenham can consider themselves very lucky the score wasn’t much more harsh than 3-0.
Speaking in an interview uploaded to Tottenham’s official club website, in response to the battering, stalwart defender Toby Alderweireld stated that Spurs have ‘two weeks to improve’ with the new season fast approaching over the horizon line. He said:
“We’ve had a tough week of training hard, but the quality has to be better and we all know that. That’s why you play in pre-season. We don’t think ‘it’s pre-season, we don’t care’ – we do care.”
“We now have two weeks to improve ourselves, to get to the level we were at last season and become even better. You don’t want to lose, of course, but we will learn and improve.”
“Now we travel back, we’ll work hard and it’s one more pre-season game against Juventus next Saturday. We have to be ready when the Premier League starts.”
Along the same line of thought, Eric Dier stated that Tottenham have just a fortnight left to get back into the habit of winning games again. He said:
“Obviously we’d like to win every game but sometimes you can’t and I think the most important thing is that the work rate’s high and we try to add some good performances.”
“Obviously you’d like to win every game because winning becomes a habit and we want to have that habit so obviously from that point of view it’s disappointing.”
“We’ve worked hard, but we know we’ve still got a lot to improve on and we’ve got two weeks to do that.”
Tottenham talisman Harry Kane then offered a similar sentiment, suggesting that although the result was disappointing, the main priority was regaining fitness and preparing for the season ahead.
“It’s great to get the fitness in,” He added. “And that was my first 90 minutes, so that’s good.”
“It’s obviously disappointing to lose and it shows we’ve still got a bit to work on before the start of the season. We can’t read too much into the results, win, lose or draw.”
“We’ll keep working on what we need to work on, try to get fitter and be ready for Newcastle. That’s the target and it’s only a couple of weeks away now.”
“We’ll keep working hard. It’s Juventus next weekend, another great game for us. It’s about getting fit and ready for that Newcastle game.”
Kane then briefly weighed in on Chelsea boss Antonio Conte’s ‘dream striker’ comments, revealing that though the praise is high, he’s only concentrating on Tottenham and improving his physical condition ahead of the upcoming 2017-18 Premier League season.
“Obviously it’s kind words,” He said. “But I’m focused on my team and what my manager thinks.”
“I’m out here concentrating on what I need to do, and being fit for the new season.”
You can find the full interviews, as well as further thoughts from Mauricio Pochettino, on Tottenham’s official website.
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