Kane saga forces Nuno to start Spurs reign by adopting siege mentality
May play as lone striker but Ndombele future is in doubt
hcoach puts ‘shield’ around squad amid City transfer talk hson
The most revealing word used by Nuno Espirito Santo ahead of his first competitive game as Tottenham Hotspur head coach was “shield”.
Unsurprisingly, the guard was up as the Portuguese inevitably faced question after question over Harry Kane’s future. This is siege-mentality mode. Even before the season begins.
Tellingly, Nuno said it was not his job to convince players to play for Tottenham, that “we have to realise that anything can happen in football” and that what was said in his conversation with Kane after the striker finally rejoined the rest of the squad for training yesterday would remain private.
“You don’t know the content of our conversation. You don’t know, correct? I suppose you don’t. What happened is between me and Harry,” Nuno eventually said as he was pushed one last time over the transfer saga which has overshadowed an already dark, chaotic few months at Spurs.
Such is the sensitivity around Kane that there was no trumpeting his return. There was none of the Kane-related social media content that might have been expected with a player of his star status – just as Spurs released when Son Heungmin walked back through the doors in mid-july.
But Son was about to sign a new four-year deal, while Kane is desperate to get out of the final three seasons of his contract. Had they heralded him, Spurs are acutely aware of the potential for embarrassment and the backlash they would have faced from their disillusioned fans, whose hostility has grown through a difficult past couple of years, spiking around the involvement in the ill-fated European Super League, when even thick-skinned chairman Daniel Levy began to feel distinctly uncomfortable.
The fact remains that Kane may well have already played his last game for Spurs – he certainly still hopes so, having said his farewell after the final home match of last season – and when the fixture computer came out with Manchester City as their opening opponents, back before a full house, with the Premier League resuming, it always appeared that getting this game out of the way was key to resolving his future.
There is a growing sense from both Kane and City that next week could be crucial. The prospect of an improved offer of around £120million – plus add-ons – will be getting closer to the £160million that Levy is said to be ready to accept, even if there is a continued insistence he has no desire to sell.
“We cannot control what is happening outside the building,” Nuno said. “We cannot control it – the news, the speculation, the rumours, all these things that surround us as a club. But we, the group of players, we close. We close ourselves. That’s the best way to prepare ourselves. Among us, there cannot be distractions. We are clear on what we have to do. And we have a shield. And we have to protect that shield the best we can.”
But the shield has been battered. The roll call of crisis points is lengthy. Spurs have not recovered from sacking Mauricio Pochettino and, after that, the first lockdown when more poor decisions were made, such as furloughing staff and forcing others to take pay cuts on the day it was revealed Levy had been paid £7million in salary and bonus.
It went on from there as they slipped from being Champions League finalists to finishing seventh and scraping into the fledgling Europa Conference League.
Even the hunt for Jose Mourinho’s successor was messy and unedifying. It is remarkable to think that Nuno was 10th choice and here is the roll call of those who turned Spurs down or whose hiring was abandoned: Julian Nagelsmann, Brendan Rodgers, Erik ten Hag, Pochettino, Hansi Flick, Antonio Conte, Julen Lopetegui, Paulo Fonseca and Gennaro Gattuso.
And they are just the ones we know about.
So, Nuno was on the back foot from day one, even if he will, like all good managers, back himself to succeed, and there are signs from preseason that Spurs are already what he described as, a more “solid” team. But even in that there are clouds. It is not just their prize asset, Kane, who is a concern, but their £55million record signing Tanguy Ndombele, who did not play a single minute of any of the five pre-season fixtures. Nuno was distinctly cold about the midfielder’s prospects.
“Tanguy did not perform in the pre-season matches because it is not the right moment for him to be with the group in terms of competition,” Nuno said. It could have been Mourinho talking.
The indications are that Son – with a feature entitled “home sweet home for Sonny” – will be used as a central striker against City unless Nuno surprisingly selects Kane (the coach said a decision would be taken after training today) and that might be a pointer to the future, especially after there was more “Spursy” frustration with a £59.6million deal for Inter Milan’s Lautaro Martinez scuppered because Chelsea nipped in and bought Romelu Lukaku.
“You are asking things based purely on ‘ifs’, situations that eventually could happen,” Nuno said when questioned on whether the uncertainty over Kane’s future was damaging. “I cannot answer to that. I can answer based on reality and the reality is today all the players who are here are with us. What can happen, I don’t know, and I don’t waste too much time thinking about that. Sorry.”
It did not sound like a ringing endorsement.