Sunday Mirror

Conte has every reason to smile... he’s won fight for signings and it’s given Spurs and Kane real chance of hunting Big Two

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IT’S been a summer of forwards dominating the transfer market with the Premier League’s top five all recruiting some big guns ahead of the new season.

Manchester City have bagged Erling Haaland, Liverpool Darwin Nunez, Chelsea have nicked Raheem Sterling, Tottenham signed Richarliso­n and Gabriel Jesus has left the Etihad for Arsenal.

One big name is missing from that line-up and it’s a player who was making all the headlines a year ago – for all the wrong reasons.

Spurs and England captain Harry Kane wanted out of the Tottenham Stadium last summer as he eyed up a £150million move to City.

Tottenham were going nowhere, finishing seventh after a turbulent spell under Jose Mourinho, and Kane didn’t like the direction his career was heading.

It was an ugly stand-off, with Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy, as he often does, playing hard-ball.

He wasn’t about to let Kane leave unless it was for a king’s ransom. But no one coughed up.

A year - and two managers – later, Kane is in a different place altogether. So are Spurs – and they could be set for a promising season.

Before Antonio Conte came in, all the talk was about the money spent on the new stadium and training ground.

Big money for transfers didn’t seem on the agenda and that left Kane frustrated.

But Conte has been a game changer. He has had to fight for funds, and even threatened to leave last season if he didn’t get the backing. That probably frightened the Spurs hierarchy.

This summer they delivered the players that Conte wanted – and that’s pacified

Kane too. The England captain looks happy to stay, for now at least, because he can see a good squad around him – with an ambitious manager who demands that everyone gets a winning mentality.

The new signings – Richarliso­n (right), Ivan Perisic (left), Clement Lenglet, Yves Bissouma and Djed

Spence – are a definite upgrade. They have the high-energy work-rate Conte wants.

Having seen pictures of players such as Kane throwing up and on their haunches gasping for breath in pre-season, it seems that the Italian means business.

They had a good finish to last season, winning 11 of their last 16 league games and that included beating City away, drawing at Anfield and seeing off Arsenal

easily in the north London derby. That run excited fans, but while they won’t mind seeing Conte let teams like City and Liverpool have the ball, they certainly won’t want to watch this counter-attacking football against every team – and that may lead to frustratio­n.

Conte wants his side to be solid and give little away.

He will want them super-fit just like Liverpool and City.

That in itself will lead to better levels of focus, as when players get tired they lose concentrat­ion.

So it looks like it’s shaping up nicely for Spurs. They will be closer.

The same could be said of Chelsea too, and whether Conte can get close enough to challenge Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola is another matter.

Tottenham have the quality, I’ve no doubt about that and, in Kane and Heung-Min Son, they have a dangerous partnershi­p that’s already establishe­d as a real force.

The consistenc­y will be the issue, but that’s why Conte has brought in someone like Perisic from Inter Milan – the Croatia star has an incredible work ethic and has proved that he has the quality to operate at the highest level.

In the past, Tottenham have been lumbered with this ‘Spursy’ tag but for me it’s just a nonsense.

They are all top players and sometimes you can get a name that unfairly sticks.

I had that with the ‘Spice Boys’. Were we that? No, of course not, but it got thrown at us and stuck.

And I don’t think Spurs are soft in any way. They weren’t at Anfield or the Etihad last season as they held their nerve to finish fourth.

And I’m certain they won’t be this season either.

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Conte has players he demanded
ARMED TO TEETH Conte has players he demanded

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