01 April 2023 , 21:30
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Sean Dyche once failed in an attempt to sign Harry Kane for Burnley - when Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy priced the striker out of the move.
With Kane’s future once again coming under scrutiny as he nears the final year of his Spurs contract, Dyche has recalled how he was desperate to boost Burnley’s firepower in readiness for the Clarets’ return to the Premier League in 2014. Dyche conducted his background checks after the teenage Kane had spent loan spells with Orient, Millwall, Norwich and Leicester.
But although the striker who has just become England’s record goalscorer ticked all the boxes, the numbers didn’t add up.
“Financially it was just too much,” said Dyche, who will be hoping the Tottenham striker leaves his shooting boots at home when his Everton team face the Londoners at Goodison Park on Monday night.
“Harry had been on loan at Norwich and Leicester. Maybe those moves hadn’t gone as well as he’d wanted, but I knew a few of the lads at Millwall who knew Harry from his loan spell there when he was only about 18.
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“Millwall is a tough place to play, especially for a young footballer, but I was told he’d handled it pretty well. I’d hoped Spurs would let us have him. But by then they had seen what he could do - and the rest is history.
“We made a phone call. But although Burnley were in the Premier League, the numbers were just too big for us. The timing was wrong and so were the numbers. I was hoping we could be a stepping stone, but Tottenham made a great decision.”
Sean Dyche tried to sign a young Harry Kane in 2014 (BEN STANSALL/AFP via Getty Images)Dyche added: “A few years later, I saw Harry on holiday in Portugal with his family and we struck up a bit of a rapport. He has been very generous in giving me a few shirts for charities that I back. You just get a feel for people, whether they are footballers or not - and Harry is a top player but also a top fella.
“Harry’s career has been stage by stage. He doesn’t lack belief but sometimes when your career isn’t quite where you want it to be, you have to hang onto your professionalism.
“Harry never wavered. Sometimes the quieter loans, the ones that don’t go as well as you’d expected, are the ones you get the most out of.”
Ironically, while Tottenham are challenging for a top four finish and Everron need points to secure Premier League safety, it is the London club that’s in crisis.
Spurs chairman Daniel Levy sacked manager Antonio Conte during the international break after the Italian delivered a damning verdict on the White Hart Lane hierarchy. Coach Cristian Stellini has been put in charge of the team until the end of the season.
Dyche said: “Like most people, I was surprised by what Conte said because he is a well-travelled, established, top manager. There must have been a reason behind it - or maybe there wasn’t.
“Football is a very emotional sport and he might have just allowed himself to explode. I wondered where it came from. Was it planned or was it something that just happened in the moment?
“Maybe he thought ‘right, that’s it, it’s all coming out.’ Do you remember the Kevin Keegan one? Sometimes this game just hits you and you think ‘I’m going to say exactly how I see it’.”
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