Spurs ‘need everyone pulling in the same direction’

Skipper Lloris accepts Kane conundrum must be solved

HUGO LLORIS has done this before. For the 10th time of asking, he is assessing Tottenham’s season and working out the chances of success. When he arrived here, signed in 2012 by Andre Villas-Boas, he was a 25-year-old with a growing reputation in France. Today, he is a World Cup winner and recognised as one of the world’s best keepers. He is on his sixth manager in Nuno Espirito Santo, yet still there has been no trophy with Spurs.

As well as taking on Manchester City today, he is captain of a club who have to navigate the politics of their best player wanting to leave, with today’s opponents coincidentally his club of choice. So it is a complex set of challenges Lloris faces in what could be his final season at the club, yet he remains characteristically upbeat.

‘It’s going to be my season No 10 for Spurs, time is going fast,’ he says. ‘But it will be with the same ambition, the same motivation. Trying to prepare myself — prepare my body, prepare my mind — for a long season and make sure I’m ready to give my best and try to help the team to achieve things we all want to achieve.

‘There is a new sporting director (Fabio Paratici) at the club, he is coming with new ideas, with his football vision, his experiences. And then there is also the manager, so it’s a new era at the club. And the most important thing today is to rediscover the confidence inside the team after a tough season like the last one, to try to build something strong.’

Perhaps that will be hard until the Harry Kane situation is resolved. Lloris is candid about the impasse between Kane and club at present, saying: ‘At every club there are players who leave, players who come and the most important thing is to keep the right energy inside the changing room, to welcome in the best way the new signings and make sure they feel well.

‘And then try to lead the team in the right direction, try to make sure everyone is going in the same direction and, for sure, things will be easier when the transfer market is closed.’

Kane trained with the team for the first time on Friday, having worked alone at the training ground during his five days of quarantine there after returning from a holiday in the Bahamas and the US. It is still disputed whether he was permitted extra time off due to playing in the Euro 2020 final for England, or whether he should have been back on Monday, August 2. That tension, though, appears to have settled for now.

‘Harry is a professional and he is here with a smile, he’s here with his team-mates,’ says Lloris. ‘There is a situation in the air, we cannot hide that, but it belongs to him and the club. If the manager needs him, he will be professional.

‘Everywhere is the same. It can happen anywhere, at any club. The most important thing is to feel that the player is professional and is respectful to his team-mates and that is completely the case, there is no doubt about that.

‘Friday is only the first day he trained with the team. Most important for me as the captain is to see my team-mates going in the same direction, together.

‘But, as I said before, we are in a period that a lot of things can happen.

‘It’s the same all around the world, at any club, and that is also the message from the manager: he just wants players focused on training sessions and focused on the competition and then we will see what will happen. As a player, a team-mate, I have no words to say, it belongs to the club and Harry to find the solution.’

For Lloris, too, the future beyond this season is uncertain, as his deal runs out next summer. He will be free to speak to foreign clubs in January and has yet to start talks on a new contract.

He is clear in his assessment of today’s opponents, when it is suggested that playing them early might work to Tottenham’s advantage, given that they had so many players involved in the Copa America and Euro finals.

‘No!’ he says, with a shake of the head. ‘It’s never a good time to be facing City, they have so much quality. It’s always tough to play them but it’s also always exciting.

‘It’s the first game of the season, in front of the fans, so we have to use this energy from the stands around the pitch.

‘When you leave the pitch, the most important feeling to have is to leave without regrets. We need to make the game hard for them and believe in our chances.’