Harry Kane has confirmed he will be staying at Tottenham this summer and that he is “100% focused on helping the team achieve success” having accepted defeat in his battle to force a move to Manchester City.
Kane has been pushing for a switch to City for months, and had initially hope to seal the deal before Euro 2020. But both player and club have made little progress, mainly due to the characteristic intransigence of Spurs’s chairman, Daniel Levy.
He rejected an initial £100m bid from City as well as a further one in the region of £127m, repeatedly insisting to the champions that Kane, who signed a six-year deal with Spurs in June 2018, was not for sale.
Kane had hoped City came back with an offer that changed Levy’s mind before Tuesday’s deadline – something in the region of £150m – but the 28-year-old now accepts there is no chance of that happening and, as such, he is stuck at Spurs, at least until the transfer window reopens at the turn of the year.
“It was incredible to see the reception from the Spurs fans on Sunday [against Wolves] and to read some of the messages of support I’ve had in the last few weeks,” Kane said in a tweet posted on his official account on Wednesday afternoon. “ I will be staying at Tottenham this summer and will be 100% focused on helping the team achieve success.”
Along with Levy, Tottenham’s managing director, Fabio Paratici, and manager, Nuno Espírito Santo, both relatively recent arrivals at the club, have played notable roles in getting Kane to stay, each speaking to the striker, Spurs’s third all-time record goalscorer with 166 goals in 243 appearances, about their plans for Spurs and how he fits into them. And while that was not enough for Kane to want to remain in situ, he appreciated their efforts, leading to him deciding prior to Sunday’s visit to Wolves that it was time to give up the transfer fight, hence him being part of the matchday squad at Molineux.
Kane had missed Spurs’s first two games of the season – the opening-day home victory over City and the 1-0 defeat away to Paços de Ferreira in the first leg of their Europa Conference qualifying tie last week having returned to training late following an extended holiday and a period of quarantine. He had also reportedly refused to report for the start pre-season training at the start of the month in protest at what he believed to be a case of Levy reneging on a gentleman’s agreement allowing him to leave Spurs this summer.
“Great news. Fantastic news,” said Nuno in response to Kane’s announcement that he was staying at Spurs. “I think since Harry joined us he has been working so this is what we value. His attitude in training has been excellent.
“It’s finished, Harry is going to be with us. He is an option for tomorrow. It is great news for everybody. We are all very happy one of the best players in the world. Delighted to have one more option for the season ahead of us.”
Kane’s mention of “this summer” in his tweet inevitably raises questions about the England captain potentially leaving in January, but speaking ahead of the second leg with Paços de Ferreira on Thursday, Nuno insisted he was not concerned. “I am not worried at all,” he said. “It’s day by day, he’s an option for tomorrow. It’s the only thing, my only thought. I am not going to say what we speak about. It’s between us.”
For City there is now the need to focus their attentions on a new centre-forward. They have been linked with Cristiano Ronaldo after he made it known to Juventus that he wants to leave the Italian club. The Portuguese’s agent, Jorge Mendes, has subsequently offered him to City, but while they are prepared to cover the 36-year-old’s £26m annual salary, they are not prepared to pay a transfer fee for him.
