Harry Kane has returned to Tottenham today to kick start pre-season with talks plans over his future with manager Ange Postecoglou.
The Spurs skipper has been heavily linked with a move away from North London this transfer window, but Postecoglou is determined to keep his star man.
Postecoglou faced the media for the first time on Monday and the discussion quickly turned to Kane, who is attracting interest from Bayern Munich amid reports the Bundesliga champions have bid for the England captain.
“I haven’t had any assurances and I wouldn’t expect any assurances,” Postecoglou explained. “That’s just my nature. I just kind of go along and try to concentrate on the things I know right now.
Day one pt.2 pic.twitter.com/cT10aUG0Fu
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“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.
“I don’t think it’s my role to sit down and treat people in a manner because of their circumstances. I’m really big on treating everyone the same and Harry has already entrenched himself in the history of this football club.
“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’s what he wants as well.
“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 to make it happen.”
Tottenham’s stance on Kane has not changed since Manchester City tried to sign the forward in 2021.
City’s advances were turned down and Spurs plan to reject any bids for the forward this summer despite his contract now entering its final 12 months.
Kane is not the only senior figure at the club with an uncertain future. Captain Hugo Lloris is expected to depart and a bloated squad – after 12 players have returned from loan spells – will need to be trimmed.
Postecoglou added: “We’re in that stage, like most clubs, where you kind of know that there will be activity between now and the start of the season and the end of the window. There will be some players who won’t be here and some players that will come in.
“Again in my mind, I try to keep that with the understanding that until something is certain, I’m not going to commit myself either way to whether a player is going to be here or not. There’s no point in wasting energy on something that may or may not happen.
“So far the lads we’ve had in have been excellent. They’ve been brilliant with the staff in adapting and implementing the things I want and we’ll keep moving along.
“We’ll get the rest of the squad back in the next couple of days so it will be great to see everyone in the building.”