Ange Postecoglou says he wants to keep Harry Kane at Tottenham and revealed he will lay out his vision for the club to the England captain during talks when he returns to training this week.
Speaking in his first press conference since being named as Antonio Conte’s permanent successor last month, Postecoglou revealed he had received no assurances from the club over Kane’s future but insisted Spurs’ talisman was looking forward to reporting back to Hotspur Way on Wednesday.
Kane, who has entered the final 12 months of his Spurs contract, is the subject of aggressive interest from Bayern Munich, who are understood to have tabled a second bid, worth in the region of £70million, for the 29-year-old this week.
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Postecoglou revealed he would hold talks with Kane but suggested he would only be able to convince him to stay by making Spurs successful.
"Harry has already entrenched himself in the history of this football club," said the Australian on Monday.
"He’s a very important part. He’s one of the premier strikers in the world and I want him involved. My conversation with him will be about how we can make this club successful. And I’ve got no doubts that what he wants as well.
"So within that context, [perhaps] that narrows into the personal stuff around Harry as an individual. If the conversation takes it that way then we’ll take it that way.
"But I doubt it’s going to be defined in the manner that people think it’s going to be. It’s not going to be a conversation where we walk out of the room and have an understanding.
"I don’t want that kind of conversation, what I want is to introduce myself to Harry and give him my vision of the football club.
"And get a sense from him on what he thinks the club needs to do to be successful and walk out on that training pitch and try and make it happen."
Spurs do not want to sell Kane this summer and still hope to persuade him to sign a new deal, but the club is likely to consider an offer in excess of £100million from an overseas club.
Asked if he had had any assurances over Kane’s future, Postecoglou said: "I haven’t had any assurances and I wouldn’t expect any assurances, because when you’re dealing with these kind of things you’re never dealing with definites or certainties in anything in life.
"What I know right now is that Harry is part of this squad and he’s looking forward to coming back to training and being amongst these players and starting to work together.
"If I spend too much time worrying about the impact it might have either way, I’m going to miss trying to build a team because ultimately that’s what’s going to make us successful, if we build a team that plays football a certain way.
"That’s going to be it. I’m not going to miss this initial opportunity to lay down what I think is going to be important in the long-term. What’s going to be important in the long-term goes beyond individuals. It’s more about overriding philosophy about who we want to be as a team and the key people within that."
