Harry Kane sends honest message to Tottenham teammates after AC Milan defeat

15 February 2023 , 12:00

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Harry Kane admitted Tottenham have to find the form of the second half of last season to save their campaign.

Tottenham went on an impressive run in the last three months of 2021/22 to force their way into the Champions League places. They find themselves in a similar position now just two points outside the top four but they are still in their Champions League tie with AC Milan despite losing the first leg in the San Siro and have got Sheffield United in the fifth round of the FA Cup.

But Kane admits that if they are to repeat last season’s run - winning eight of their last 11 games - then they need to discover some consistency and rhythm pretty quickly.

Tottenham striker Kane said: “There’s a lot to play for, we will work extremely hard and we're hoping that will pay off towards this end of the season. It did last year by getting the Champions League but we also know we've got a lot of difficult games coming up.

“ West Ham then Chelsea, so you can't afford to slip too far down and lose too many games. We have to keep fighting and keep working, not get too down when we have defeats because we need to bounce back at the weekend.

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“In football you can win or lose games. The fight we showed in Milan is the team we want to be. When we think about the Leicester game, that's unacceptable [in terms of] how we want to be as a team.

“We didn't show enough fight, enough passion, enough desire. We did that in Milan. OK, you can lose the game but as long as we have that togetherness and fight amongst the squad, we should win more than we lose.”

Harry Kane knows Tottenham must improve over the remainder of the campaign (Getty Images)

Tottenham boss Antonio Conte was critical of his players and the way some of them “collapse” under pressure because they went from beating Manchester City to losing 4-1 at Leicester in less than a week. Kane admitted the Leicester game “hurt” but admitted their lack of silverware - they have not won a trophy since 2008 - means they have to accept some of their shortcomings.

Kane said: “We haven't won a trophy for a long time. We've been in good moments, we've been close but for one reason or another we haven't achieved what we wanted to achieve.

“Leicester was disappointing because we were coming off the back of three wins in a row, a really good win against City and it was really the time to put our foot on the pedal, climb up the league and see what happens.

“To lose that type of game in the manner that we lost it was what hurt the most and I know that's what hurt the boss the most. So hopefully that's behind us and we don't have any more performances like that. We can still lose games but be more like the team we were in Milan. That should stand us in good stead.”

Spurs were beaten 1-0 by AC Milan at the San Siro in their Champions League last-16 first leg (Paul Currie/REX/Shutterstock)

Meanwhile, Kane has also heaped praise on Champions League rookies Oliver Skipp and Pape Sarr who both made their full debuts in the competition and, despite the defeat, earned rave reviews and will now get more game time during the run-in because of injuries.

Skipp and Sarr clearly covered so much ground that they struggled to provide a sample after being called for post-match drug testing and the rest of the squad left for the airport without them with the club laying on their own people carrier so the pair could catch up with their team mates.

Academy graduate Skipp, 22, has enjoyed a rollercoaster ride since joining the club but was in their Champions League squad for the final in 2019. Incredibly, Skipp was revising for his A Levels at the time, took his books to Madrid and returned to sit the exams where he got an A in Economics and B in History.

Kane added: “I'm sure they'll both be disappointed we lost but they can be proud. We've got a lot of games coming up and I'm sure they are going to play a lot more than they have been. They need to get ready for that.”