‘We want to’ – Conte claims Harry Kane can achieve his ambition at Spurs

Antonio Conte has admitted that it is up to him and his coaching staff to convince Harry Kane and the rest of the Tottenham squad that the club can compete for major honours in the future.

It has been reported over the past week that Kane wants assurances that Tottenham will back Conte in the transfer market before committing his future to the club (The Sun).

Fabrizio Romano has revealed that while the Spurs boss has a great relationship with Kane and wants the striker to be the ‘star’ of his project, the 28-year-old will not make a decision on his future before the end of March.

Conte has now said that he understands Kane’s ambition to win major trophies and insisted that his job is to help make the striker even better than he is already.

When asked about Kane’s desire for silverware, the Tottenham head coach told Football.London: “Harry is a player with great ambition and it must be this way because a player like him, I repeat, we are talking about a world-class striker.

“He has to be ambitious. For sure, for a player and for a striker, it’s very important to improve, to beat records. Records are important but, at the same time, it’s also important at the end of your career to lift trophies.

“Because only you win and lift trophies, can you go into the story of the club. My task in this moment is to try and improve him, but in the same way, with the other players, to become more complete.

“For sure, to improve a player to stay in this level. It’s good, it’s not easy because the space [to improve] is not so much, but I still think he’s improving, he’s improving a lot and Harry is another player who gives me great availability.

“Strikers are very, very important because, for me, strikers are a point of reference and every situation we prepare is for strikers to give them their opportunity to score, to be involved and the striker is a very important part of my teams both here and in the past.”

Conte also made it clear that Tottenham hope to be competing for top honours in the coming years but admitted that each player will have a decision to make regarding their futures at the end of the season.

He added: “Many times I like to repeat that I was a player. I like to remember this not to tell you I was a player, but only to show that I understand very well the psychological aspect of the players. Now I am the coach, but before I was with them – whenever there was a meeting or a training session.

“When I became a coach, my first target was to say that we won’t make mistakes that others made with you. My first target – and it was not just Kane, it was the other players – to tell them that there is a coach here that is the right coach if we want to try to be competitive or build something important, or if your mind is fixed on lifting a trophy.

“There is only one way to convince this sort of player. It is to work, it is to convince them of your football knowledge and to improve them.

“Only in this way you have the respect of your players. I have only this way to show to my players – I am here because we are trying to start to build something important together.

“It won’t be easy but now I think it will be very good to continue this way and I think that Harry, like the other players, understood the situation. They also understood that the club wanted to give an input by appointing a coach that in the past won things.

“We have to train these players for three or four months to try to improve and then continue to build something important, but I understand then that every single player has to make the best decision at the end of the season.”

Spurs Web Opinion

If Conte is to convince Kane that he can fulfil his ambitions at Tottenham, the striker will want to see evidence of that on the pitch.

So, one would think that Spurs would need to finish in the top four if Kane is to be convinced to commit his future to the club. Even then, the striker might insist on adding a release clause to his contract after what he experienced last summer.

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