Tottenham interim boss Ryan Mason says Harry Kane’s comments about not wanting to end his career with regrets and eyeing up Kevin De Bruyne as a dream team-mate are completely normal.
Kane has been speaking about his future this week after reportedly telling the club he wants to leave, and made a range of pointed statements which affirmed the notion that he sees his future elsewhere.
But Mason, who is a close friend of the 27-year-old striker, said Kane’s comments are understandable.
“Of course no player wants to end their career with regrets,” he said. “I don’t think any human being likes having regrets either. It’s normal. If you speak to any player in the world we say the same.
“The summer is the summer, next season is next season, but at the moment the only conversations that we’ll be having are about the game at the weekend, not only with Harry but every other player in the squad as well.”
On Kane saying playing with De Bruyne would be a “striker’s dream”, Mason added: “I wasn’t aware of that because I haven’t heard it but I would love to play with Kevin De Bruyne as well.
“Every footballer in the world or Premier League would. He is an exceptional player and from what I’ve seen, I have spoken to him a few times, he is an exceptional person as well. If you ask any footballer in the world right now, they would say yes.”
Kane put a price of £100million on his head, but Spurs are likely to want much more than that if they are even to consider selling their star man, who is in contention for the Premier League Golden Boot and is also top of the assists charts going into the final game of the season at Leicester.
Mason says winning a third Golden Boot would be a fitting reward for Kane’s brilliant season.
“I think first of all I hope Harry scores a couple at the weekend, because I think his performances this season have warranted the Golden Boot and he’s been the best player in the Premier League,” he said.
“He’s got the most assists and hopefully from an individual point of view he wins the Golden Boot as well. In doing that he helps us get three points at the weekend. That’s the most important thing.
“I can’t speak on transfer value and people’s stock and all that. In football things change so quickly. At the moment Harry is a Tottenham player and he’s going to be involved at the weekend and hopefully he can win the Golden Boot.”
Gareth Bale’s future is also up in the air as he plays the final game of his loan spell from Real Madrid. He is likely to have no future back in the Spanish capital, but it is not yet known whether he will return to north London next season.
There have been suggestions that Bale’s focus has been getting fit for Wales’ European Championship campaign, but Mason refutes that idea.
“I completely disagree with that personally,” he said. “I can only speak of my experience in the last five weeks with Gareth.
“He’s scored four goals for this football club in that time. He’s been excellent. Last weekend was the most minutes he’s played in the Premier League all season, pushing close to 90 minutes.
“I think if you were to look at Gareth in that moment he looked fit, he looked strong, he was brave, he added a different dimension for us and he has quality as well.
“That spike in terms of the minutes played he felt his quad. In terms of him thinking about this summer, I don’t believe so because he was out there the other night playing through some pain, playing through a problem he had for me, for himself and for the football club.
“In terms of Gareth’s commitment, Gareth’s quality, I think his commitment has been fully there in this moment I’ve been here and in terms of his quality, his quality is never going to leave him. I think you see that every time he’s on the football pitch.”
Spurs need to win and hope West Ham lose to have any hope of qualifying for the Europa League spot, and they will miss out on Europe all together if Everton better their result or Arsenal win and they do not.
Mason said: “We want to win and then we’ll see where we end up.
“The first priority is to win. Unfortunately the other night damaged us, it’s not in our control and we’re disappointed with that. We need to bounce back, take care of the weekend’s result.”
Japhet Tanganga (ankle) and Ben Davies (calf) are out.
