Antonio Conte believes that his Tottenham striker Harry Kane is only going to get better and he will be helping him along the way. After a sticky start to Spurs' campaign, the 28-year-old forward has hit his stride in recent months with 14 goals and five assists since mid-December.
Having won both the Premier League Golden Boot and Playmaker awards last season, it seems Kane is reaching his peak as a striker and creative force, but the performances of Real Madrid's 34-year-old forward Karim Benzema and Bayern Munich's Robert Lewandowski, 33, suggest that age is no barrier to continued improvement. Conte believes that if Kane continues to look after himself off of the pitch then he can continue to improve, armed with the extra experience age brings.
"Don't forget we're talking about a player who has already shown to be a top class striker. In the past he scored fantastic goals. He was younger but despite this he scored in a fantastic way in every season," said the Spurs head coach.
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"For sure, when you grow, you gain experience and you understand your body much better, you improve your mentality. For sure, the players you spoke about have great professionalism. Ronaldo, why has he arrived at his age, has this mentality and has this type of performance? Because he takes care of himself and if you take care in training sessions, about your food, you become more complete.
"For sure, when you get older, you're more experienced and in my experience you start to understand situations that in the past you thought wasn't useful. In my experience, after 30 years old I understood the importance of food. After 30 years old!
"I understood that to eat well was good for injury, to recover well, and to sleep eight hours was important. When you become older, you can add experience in your talent, your quality, your professionality.
"Also we're talking about a player [in Harry] who in every training session wants to push himself, wants to improve himself. For him it will be very easy to find the right way to continue to develop and find the best absolute."
On his experiences himself as an older player at Juventus, Conte added: "I tried to bring my experience as a player to my players. When I was a player, for sure I made many mistakes. So I try to give advice, the right advice to my players like a big brother, because I want the best for them."
Conte had earlier admitted that there is not much more you can teach someone as good as Kane, but he still believes that and his Spurs coaches can improve him.
"I think he deserves an important position in the world of football. I think Harry also he has the right age to show that he can be one of the best, best in the world but especially in history no?" explained the Italian. "I think he's already in the history because he scored a lot of goals for the club and scored a lot of goals for the national team. He's the captain.
"He has the right age to consolidate and be one of the best in the world. His role, he's a No.9 but at the same time he can be a No.10 because of his quality. He's very good at making assists and to put the ball where he wants. We try also to exploit this aspect and give the ball to him.
"About our team, I'm trying to improve not his quality but to be more effective, to be in the box and a striker. I repeat we're talking about a fantastic player, so it's very difficult to improve him but we're trying to work, to push him to have the top ambition to become the best striker."
