Ange Postecoglou says Tottenham are right to grieve the departure of Harry Kane to Germany. However, the new Spurs manager claims he knew the club legend would be leaving before he even took the job.
And he quelled fans’ hopes of Spurs splashing out on a top-level replacement in the final three weeks of the window by claiming that the business of the summer up to now had all been about life beyond Harry. “I’m not going to tell the supporters how to feel,” he said.
“They need to go through that process themselves. What’s really important now is that when they see their team play, that fills them with hope and potential that we can build something they’re going to be proud of.
“I pretty much knew he was going from the moment I came into the job. You do due diligence when you take a job and hopefully I was well researched enough to know what was going on in the background.
“It is not like we’ve had a pow-wow this morning and thought, ‘Jeez, what do we do?’ We knew it was coming and we’ve been working towards that. Oh I don’t think there is a like-for-like replacement for Harry in terms of a striker but we’ve been planning for this, fair to say, for a while.
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“I had a conversation with Harry the first day arrived and he was upfront and honest, and I was the same. You kind of get an indication there that he kind of made up his mind that if the clubs agreed he would go, particularly if it was before the first game. That was my preference as well.”
The pair simply exchanged texts by way of goodbye and there was no farewell visit to the training ground from Kane on his way, eventually, to the airport. Postecoglou expects he will touch base with his former team-mates over the coming days.
Moreover, the Australian does not rule out a return one day. He added: “No idea, mate. No idea about the details of the deal. Postecoglou predicts: “He’ll definitely be back at Tottenham one day in one capacity or another. When you have a career like he has at one football club, you’re never not part of it.”
In the meantime, the rest of the squad simply has to pull together to fill the hole. No one player could be expected to match Kane’s goal record, but the signing of James Maddison has been key along with the opening now there for Richarlison to assert himself alongside the ever-dependable Son Heung-min.
“What we’ve got to try to do is what the great clubs do: replace greatness with greatness,” Postecoglou stated. “How that comes about is not easy – but that’s what the big clubs do. They find a way to sustain and maintain and grow even when the greatest leave their doors.”