Nuno Espirito Santo remained coy when pressed on Harry Kane’s future following Tottenham’s 2-2 pre-season draw with Chelsea, but reassured fans he was working to speak with the forward as ‘soon’ as possible to ‘solve the situation’.
Second-half goals from Lucas Moura and Steven Bergwijn cancelled out an earlier double from Hakim Ziyech in this evening’s entertaining Mind Series clash at Stamford Bridge.
However, speculation surrounding Spurs’ star striker, Kane, somewhat overshadowed the game, with the 28-year-old failing to show up for training in the build-up to the friendly amid strong interest rivals Manchester City.
The Premier League champions have had an eye-watering £100million offer rejected out of hand for Kane but are expected to return with another bid for the England captain in due course, despite Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy seemingly digging his heels in.
Kane and his camp believe the club have gone back on a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ that was in place to let the attacker leave for a nine-figure fee and the episode – which is likely to rumble on right up until the transfer deadline – unsurprisingly dominated Nuno’s post-match press conference.
‘It is not that I don’t want to comment, what I believe that all the issues relating Harry we should discuss internally, among us and try to avoid any kind of public argument or discussion about it,’ the newly-appointed Tottenham manager told reporters.
‘We have to solve the situation but between us.’
Asked whether he intends to talk with Kane, the Portuguese added: ‘I expect to speak with Harry soon, I didn’t get the chance yet.’
So far this summer, Tottenham have brought in just one player on a permanent basis, with goalkeeper Pierluigi Gollini joining on loan and Bryan Gil arriving from Sevilla for a fee of around £22.5million.
But Nuno stressed that the north London club pushing to get more deals over the line, with new managing director of football, Fabio Paratici, working hard behind the scenes.
‘We are working very hard on that aspect,’ Nuno went on.
‘But it is very hard to improve our squad because we have very good players.
‘Fab has hard work.’
Nuno was pleased with the ‘courage and determination’ his side displayed as they fought back from two goals down to rescue a draw versus Thomas Tuchel’s side at Stamford Bridge.
‘If you take a look at the moment we conceded the second goal at the beginning of the second half, we were doing really well in the game,’ the ex-Wolves boss explained.
‘We had a couple of chances and just couldn’t score in the moment I felt the team was settling down.
‘But then the boys showed a lot of courage and determination to chase the game so I’m really pleased with the fact that many of our players have made more than 90 minutes in all of the circumstances. It’s very pleasing.’
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