Blackcanary
Dame sans merci
- Jul 15, 2012
- 5,621
- 12,170
Meanwhile, at Tottenham, Levy was trying to get the club back on track for the new season, and that meant finally appointing a replacement for Mourinho.
In late May and early June, they were aiming for a top-end hire, such as Antonio Conte or the return of Mourinho’s fan-favourite predecessor Mauricio Pochettino. While club figures did not think that such an appointment would instantly sway Kane to want to stay, there was a feeling doing so might make it easier for Levy to say no to Kane, and tell him to play one more season as Spurs tried to get back on track.
So when Fabio Paratici, Spurs’ new managing director of football, was looking around Italy in mid-June, speaking to managerial candidates, he was making it very clear to people that Kane would be a Tottenham player for the coming season. But as the managerial hunt dragged on far longer than anyone could have expected, people started to wonder what it might mean for Kane. One popular view was that it would push him out, that he would be even more desperate to leave, and that Levy would have no authority to say no after bungling the search for a new head coach so badly.
Yet an alternative view at the club was that the more embarrassing the managerial search was for Tottenham, the more pressure Levy would be under to keep hold of Kane. He could not afford for a difficult summer to become a disastrous one.
When City came in with their first cash bid, in late June, it did not get very far. The £100 million offer, or more precisely £75 million up front and £25 million in various add-ons, was far away from what would have been needed just to give Levy something to think about. It did nothing to move the Spurs chairman from his conviction that Kane would not be sold this summer, and certainly not to another club in the Premier League.
Two years ago Kane might have been a target for Real Madrid, Barcelona, or Juventus, but football’s economic landscape has changed, and those teams cannot afford the biggest stars anymore (This was weeks before Madrid’s massive, already-rejected bid for Paris Saint-Germain’s Kylian Mbappe). So a move within the Premier League was Kane’s only option, and one Levy was determined to block.
With City having made their first two approaches, and Spurs having rebuffed both, the attention switched to Kane himself. What would he do to try to force his way out?
In 2013, when Bale wanted to leave for Real Madrid, he did not show up for pre-season training in order to force the issue, and it worked. At the end of that summer window, Levy agreed an £85 million deal for the Welshman to go to the Bernabeu. But the expectation this summer was that Kane would not try the same tactics. He had always been a good professional at Spurs, always desperate to play every game, and keep scoring goals. As much as he wanted to leave, he would not down tools to try to make it happen.
Kane, it should be remembered, did not want to have to force things either. His hope, at the end of last season, was that this could all be resolved quickly and amicably without his having to resort to any extra machinations. He thought that he would be able to leave with Levy’s blessing. But in a meeting on July 16, five days after England lost the Euros final in a penalty shootout with Italy, Paratici reiterated the club’s position to the Kane camp. And when Kane flew off to the Bahamas, to a resort co-owned by Spurs’ owner Joe Lewis, on his summer holiday, he sensed that something had to change.
Tottenham had told Kane they expected him back to prepare for pre-season training on Monday, August 2 — a three-week break after the final of the Euros. But when that day came, he was still away, having headed from the Bahamas to another resort in Florida before returning home. While Kane believes this was down to a breakdown in communication between himself and the club, and that he had been granted extended leave, the view at Tottenham is that he knew when he was expected back. Kane was fined two weeks’ wages for his late return.
Kane did not return to Hotspur Way until August 7, a Saturday, having issued a statement on social media saying that he was “hurt” by those “questioning his professionalism”, and insisting that he “would never” refuse to train.
With Kane back at Spurs Lodge, the on-site accommodation at the training ground, he was left training by himself until COVID-19 regulations allowed him to rejoin the whole group. On the Monday, August 9, Paratici held a three-hour meeting with him, during which Kane repeatedly reiterated his own desire to leave, and Paratici made clear that the club would not be selling.
On the Thursday afternoon, Kane completed his day-five ‘test to release’ PCR test, the negative result of which cleared him to train with the group next morning. But those Friday and Saturday sessions were not enough to get Kane ready to play in Tottenham’s August 15 season opener against… Manchester City.
Tottenham, with Son Heung-min up front, put in a brilliant performance that Sunday, winning the game 1-0 and tearing through the Premier League champions on the break. By the end, Spurs fans were singing “Are you watching Harry Kane?”, pointing to the fact that on the evidence of this one particular game, City missed Kane more than Tottenham did.
But if City needed Kane so much, why were they not showing it? No one from the City hierarchy discussed the signing of Kane with Spurs when they were at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium that afternoon. Levy’s stonewall tactics, refusing to even negotiate with them or pick up the phone, appeared to have worked.
One view of this period is that City did surprisingly little to indicate their desire to sign Kane. At the moment when Kane’s relationship with Tottenham was most fraught, they did not come in with an improved offer.
City are never usually reluctant to spend big when they especially want a player. They showed that by paying the £100 million release clause to sign Grealish from Aston Villa on August 5. But with Kane, City were slow to come in with a higher offer, to give Levy something to think about. And it has raised the question: Did the rest of the City hierarchy want Kane, who turned 28 last month, as much as their manager Pep Guardiola himself did?
For Guardiola, Kane was hugely attractive, given his Premier League experience, his intelligence to play as a No 9 or a No 10, his instinctive understanding of the game. He could have fitted into City’s play far smoother than the awkward power of Borussia Dortmund’s 21-year-old striker Erling Haaland. On August 6, Guardiola took the unusual step of calling Kane an “exceptional, extraordinary striker” in his pre-Spurs match press conference.
An alternative view is that with Levy having made it crystal clear that he would not be negotiating with City to sell them Kane, there was little to be gained from coming back in with an offer that would not get anywhere. City would have been willing to go up to £100 million up front and £20 million more in add-ons to sign Kane, but they never had the slightest indication that doing so would have been worthwhile.
And while City have just spent £100 million on Grealish, they have traditionally been reluctant to get into bidding wars for established stars, pulling out of interest in Alexis Sanchez, Harry Maguire and Jorginho in recent years when they became too expensive. Maybe signing the two England team-mates this summer for a combined £220 million-plus would have been too much of a departure from their normal policy.
Either way, with Levy even more adamant by the day that Kane would not be sold, and City unable to persuade him otherwise, the situation was at an impasse. And that impasse was just what Levy had been hoping for.
As August dragged on with no big new bid, it became increasingly clear to everyone close to the situation that Levy had won. Even though plenty of junior staff at City believed Kane was on his way to their club, the reality was that it was never truly on the cards.
Kane continued to train and recover his match sharpness. He was not quite ready for the Europa Conference League play-off first leg away to Portugal’s Pacos de Ferreira last Thursday, but by then he too sensed City would not be coming back with a huge amount of money, enough to buy him out of the three years left on his deal.
And when Spurs went to Molineux on Sunday, second-half substitute Kane was roared onto the pitch by the away end.
They all knew then what Kane would make explicit yesterday: that he would remain one of their own for a bit longer.
In late May and early June, they were aiming for a top-end hire, such as Antonio Conte or the return of Mourinho’s fan-favourite predecessor Mauricio Pochettino. While club figures did not think that such an appointment would instantly sway Kane to want to stay, there was a feeling doing so might make it easier for Levy to say no to Kane, and tell him to play one more season as Spurs tried to get back on track.
So when Fabio Paratici, Spurs’ new managing director of football, was looking around Italy in mid-June, speaking to managerial candidates, he was making it very clear to people that Kane would be a Tottenham player for the coming season. But as the managerial hunt dragged on far longer than anyone could have expected, people started to wonder what it might mean for Kane. One popular view was that it would push him out, that he would be even more desperate to leave, and that Levy would have no authority to say no after bungling the search for a new head coach so badly.
Yet an alternative view at the club was that the more embarrassing the managerial search was for Tottenham, the more pressure Levy would be under to keep hold of Kane. He could not afford for a difficult summer to become a disastrous one.
When City came in with their first cash bid, in late June, it did not get very far. The £100 million offer, or more precisely £75 million up front and £25 million in various add-ons, was far away from what would have been needed just to give Levy something to think about. It did nothing to move the Spurs chairman from his conviction that Kane would not be sold this summer, and certainly not to another club in the Premier League.
Two years ago Kane might have been a target for Real Madrid, Barcelona, or Juventus, but football’s economic landscape has changed, and those teams cannot afford the biggest stars anymore (This was weeks before Madrid’s massive, already-rejected bid for Paris Saint-Germain’s Kylian Mbappe). So a move within the Premier League was Kane’s only option, and one Levy was determined to block.
With City having made their first two approaches, and Spurs having rebuffed both, the attention switched to Kane himself. What would he do to try to force his way out?
In 2013, when Bale wanted to leave for Real Madrid, he did not show up for pre-season training in order to force the issue, and it worked. At the end of that summer window, Levy agreed an £85 million deal for the Welshman to go to the Bernabeu. But the expectation this summer was that Kane would not try the same tactics. He had always been a good professional at Spurs, always desperate to play every game, and keep scoring goals. As much as he wanted to leave, he would not down tools to try to make it happen.
Kane, it should be remembered, did not want to have to force things either. His hope, at the end of last season, was that this could all be resolved quickly and amicably without his having to resort to any extra machinations. He thought that he would be able to leave with Levy’s blessing. But in a meeting on July 16, five days after England lost the Euros final in a penalty shootout with Italy, Paratici reiterated the club’s position to the Kane camp. And when Kane flew off to the Bahamas, to a resort co-owned by Spurs’ owner Joe Lewis, on his summer holiday, he sensed that something had to change.
Tottenham had told Kane they expected him back to prepare for pre-season training on Monday, August 2 — a three-week break after the final of the Euros. But when that day came, he was still away, having headed from the Bahamas to another resort in Florida before returning home. While Kane believes this was down to a breakdown in communication between himself and the club, and that he had been granted extended leave, the view at Tottenham is that he knew when he was expected back. Kane was fined two weeks’ wages for his late return.
Kane did not return to Hotspur Way until August 7, a Saturday, having issued a statement on social media saying that he was “hurt” by those “questioning his professionalism”, and insisting that he “would never” refuse to train.
With Kane back at Spurs Lodge, the on-site accommodation at the training ground, he was left training by himself until COVID-19 regulations allowed him to rejoin the whole group. On the Monday, August 9, Paratici held a three-hour meeting with him, during which Kane repeatedly reiterated his own desire to leave, and Paratici made clear that the club would not be selling.
On the Thursday afternoon, Kane completed his day-five ‘test to release’ PCR test, the negative result of which cleared him to train with the group next morning. But those Friday and Saturday sessions were not enough to get Kane ready to play in Tottenham’s August 15 season opener against… Manchester City.
Tottenham, with Son Heung-min up front, put in a brilliant performance that Sunday, winning the game 1-0 and tearing through the Premier League champions on the break. By the end, Spurs fans were singing “Are you watching Harry Kane?”, pointing to the fact that on the evidence of this one particular game, City missed Kane more than Tottenham did.
But if City needed Kane so much, why were they not showing it? No one from the City hierarchy discussed the signing of Kane with Spurs when they were at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium that afternoon. Levy’s stonewall tactics, refusing to even negotiate with them or pick up the phone, appeared to have worked.
One view of this period is that City did surprisingly little to indicate their desire to sign Kane. At the moment when Kane’s relationship with Tottenham was most fraught, they did not come in with an improved offer.
City are never usually reluctant to spend big when they especially want a player. They showed that by paying the £100 million release clause to sign Grealish from Aston Villa on August 5. But with Kane, City were slow to come in with a higher offer, to give Levy something to think about. And it has raised the question: Did the rest of the City hierarchy want Kane, who turned 28 last month, as much as their manager Pep Guardiola himself did?
For Guardiola, Kane was hugely attractive, given his Premier League experience, his intelligence to play as a No 9 or a No 10, his instinctive understanding of the game. He could have fitted into City’s play far smoother than the awkward power of Borussia Dortmund’s 21-year-old striker Erling Haaland. On August 6, Guardiola took the unusual step of calling Kane an “exceptional, extraordinary striker” in his pre-Spurs match press conference.
An alternative view is that with Levy having made it crystal clear that he would not be negotiating with City to sell them Kane, there was little to be gained from coming back in with an offer that would not get anywhere. City would have been willing to go up to £100 million up front and £20 million more in add-ons to sign Kane, but they never had the slightest indication that doing so would have been worthwhile.
And while City have just spent £100 million on Grealish, they have traditionally been reluctant to get into bidding wars for established stars, pulling out of interest in Alexis Sanchez, Harry Maguire and Jorginho in recent years when they became too expensive. Maybe signing the two England team-mates this summer for a combined £220 million-plus would have been too much of a departure from their normal policy.
Either way, with Levy even more adamant by the day that Kane would not be sold, and City unable to persuade him otherwise, the situation was at an impasse. And that impasse was just what Levy had been hoping for.
As August dragged on with no big new bid, it became increasingly clear to everyone close to the situation that Levy had won. Even though plenty of junior staff at City believed Kane was on his way to their club, the reality was that it was never truly on the cards.
Kane continued to train and recover his match sharpness. He was not quite ready for the Europa Conference League play-off first leg away to Portugal’s Pacos de Ferreira last Thursday, but by then he too sensed City would not be coming back with a huge amount of money, enough to buy him out of the three years left on his deal.
And when Spurs went to Molineux on Sunday, second-half substitute Kane was roared onto the pitch by the away end.
They all knew then what Kane would make explicit yesterday: that he would remain one of their own for a bit longer.
