MY ACCOUNT
Antonio Conte suggested Harry Kane would gladly swap his goalscoring accolades for a major trophy after he broke the Premier League’s one-club goals record in a hard-fought win over Wolves.
Kane nodded home from close range to earn Tottenham a 1-0 victory over Bruno Lage’s men on Saturday, with his 185th Premier League goal for Spurs moving him clear of Sergio Aguero’s tally of 184 strikes in the competition for Manchester City.
The 29-year-old’s second-half winner also represented his 250th goal for the club in all competitions, as well as Tottenham’s 1,000th Premier League goal on home soil.
But for all his goalscoring prowess, Kane is yet to lift a major trophy, finishing as an EFL Cup and Champions League runner-up with his club and failing to lead England to glory in the Euro 2020 final last year.
While Conte was full of praise for Kane when speaking to BT Sport after the win, he emphasised the striker’s desire to play his part in a collective triumph.
“It is a great achievement, a great personal achievement, but I know that Harry would like to exchange this achievement with a trophy,” Conte said.
“I know this, he is working for this and we are working for this, to try to improve the team and bring the club on another level, not only to have big personal achievements.
“At the same time, you know very well my consideration about Harry, we are talking about a world-class striker.
“But what makes me happy is not only with the ball – that we have in our team a top scorer, a top player – but we have a player totally involved with the other team-mates and [who] works a lot for the team.
“For this reason, I am really pleased to have him and to be his coach.”
Tottenham’s win means they have remained unbeaten through their first three matches of the Premier League season, just as they did under Nuno Espirito Santo last term. This is the first time Spurs have done so in consecutive campaigns since 2004-05 and 2005-06.
And Conte believes Tottenham’s run of positive results – all against teams who won the corresponding fixtures last season – is a reflection of their development in recent months.
“The performance at the end was good, because I had to consider everything, first of all the importance of the opponent,” he said.
“Wolverhampton I think in the last week signed important players like [Goncalo] Guedes, like [Matheus] Nunes. I think when you see their starting XI today, you have to be a bit scared.
“I think it’s a really good team. In the first half we struggled a bit, but in the second half I think we deserved to win, we created many chances to score. The first half was good to stay calm, to stay focused, to suffer together.
“Don’t forget, last season with these three teams we played this season, we lost. Against Southampton, against Chelsea and against Wolverhampton, with me [as coach].
“Now we’ve got seven points, I think that is a good sign. The team is continuing to improve.”
