Conversation Corner: Tottenham vs Manchester City
Harry Kane:
“Okay with Harry, delighted to be with Harry. Harry, we spoke so often last season. Everyone’s — I mean the focus is on you and let’s be honest. That goal, that ball, went in slow motion. How did you feel?”
“Very slow. No, of course, delighted to score — that’s actually my first goal for Spurs this season — it’s been a lot of talk about it and it’s good to say, to silence some of the critics. It’s been seven games, has it been, outside the whole season. So it’s, no, great to score but I say, it doesn’t stop here there’s a long way to go. I know what I’m capable of and like I said, what a performance as a team, incredible. Every single player, the subs everyone that came on, everyone was focused on what they needed to do and today we showed, a real statement of what we could do against, like I say a couple good teams.”
“So 1-0 down against City. I mean you need a spark, Eric provided the spark. Second half though, I mean we came out like a team possessed didn’t we?”
“Yeah, I don’t think we deserved to be 1-0 down. We got caught, obviously, on our heels with the counterattack. And then Dier’s, like you said, scored a very important goal right on the stroke of halftime. What a strike it was so delighted for him. And then yeah, we said at halftime let’s just go out and just bring in a little bit of energy and take the momentum with us and we got the other goal in the second half and we just built from there really. And like I said, we never — after that — looked like conceding. The defense was great, everyone put a shift in, and yeah we’re just buzzing.”
“Man City were playing against us well, but they didn’t win it bottom line.”
“No exactly, they’re top of the league — I say before the game started — and we showed what kind of a team we could be. We’ve got some good results recently in the Premier League and we were quite unlucky to start off with. But we know what we’re capable of, we’re a young team a very energetic team and that brings a lot of high-press and yeah we’re excited. You know we’re enjoying every moment and days like today just gives us more confidence.”
“Must ask you about Eric. I mean he’s gone right-back to center-back to center midfield. Now he’s smashing in goals, he’s playing up front and he’s done well hasn’t he?”
“Yeah well, what a player he’s been for us this season. He’s been absolutely solid, I say he’s played in that probably #4 role and he’s adapted to it great. He’s got a great pass, he tackles, he works hard so yeah we’re excited to have him there. And obviously everyone’s playing well at the moment, I couldn’t fault one player out there today. So yeah like I say, we just got to build on this, can’t get too carried away and yeah take the momentum with us.”
“It’s very interesting, Harry, because we talked Eric and he said at the end of that interview. He said ‘Look, we’re in that dressing room, we’re a bit fed up. We’re a bit fed up with people from the outside saying we can’t beat these teams. This is a statement win, we wanted to prove people wrong.'”
“Yeah exactly, a lot of times last season I thought we played well enough to beat the teams and we didn’t for one reason or another. But we showed today, that I say we’re going to be ruthless, there’s a long way to go obviously. But like I said, Man City are no mooks and we made them not look very good today. Obviously a few things went our way which you need in big games, but overall I think we, by far, deserved to win that game.”
“And just a final one mate. I mean we saw us beat Chelsea and then the Arsenal game, now today. You get in that zone at this place and we can pretty much be unstoppable with the fans making that noise as well.”
“No definitely. The atmosphere was unbelievable and a lot of teams will be looking at us — Tottenham away — and they won’t want to play us you know. When we get going in our stadium and the fans are behind us, not many teams can beat us. And you saw that today, even though it was 1-0 down, the fans kept cheering us on and Dier got his goal and then we just went from there. It was electric, the fans were electric — everyone around the place was — and we’ve done that a couple times last year. So hopefully we could it do more this year especially against the bigger teams and keep our performances up.”
“And the last one back to you mate. I’ve got to ask you, I mean has it gotten to you? I mean it hasn’t seem to have done much today, but has it got to you a little bit? Do you seem to be alright?”
“No of course, any goalscorer wants to be scoring goals, that’s their trade that’s what they want to be doing. But for me, I knew it was going to come I just had to keep working hard for the team, doing my job for the team, which is the most important thing at the end of the day. Kick it in the right places — “
“You’ve had the worst run of luck ever to be fair.”
“That’s what I mean, I think I’ve had three or four offsides goals this year. Had one cleared at the end of the line obviously midweek. See sometimes as a striker you need just a bit of luck to change and probably got that today. And yeah hopefully I can build on this now, but the most important thing is the team and we’re playing very well and we’re winning games.”
“First of many for you mate, well done.”
Next: Érik Lamela