Premier League: Mauricio Pochettino praises Harry Kane for inspirational performance at West Brom
Saturday 31 January 2015 19:32, UK
Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino expects Harry Kane to get even better after the striker's superb season continued with two goals at West Brom.
The 21-year-old scored his 19th and 20th goals of the campaign as Spurs ran out comfortable 3-0 winners at The Hawthorns.
Kane has emerged as one of the hottest young talents in the English game and Pochettino also responded to reports Kane's newly-signed contract could be replace with an improved one.
"This is a club decision and the player's decision. This is business, but Harry wants to stay with Tottenham and Tottenham want Harry to stay long term,” Pochettino said.
"It is good for him, good for the team and good for us. His performance was great. Always when the strikers score goals it is good for the team.
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"But I think always my focus is that a player can improve. He is young and, like other players, needs to show that he can improve. You cannot stop your improvement.
"But I think that not only him, but all players showed character here. This was our challenge when we arrived at Tottenham, to show character and play in this way, like we did from the beginning."
Spurs made a superb start with Christian Eriksen continuing where he left off in the Capital One Cup semi-final in midweek to open the scoring with a brilliant free-kick after six minutes.
Kane doubled the lead after 15 minutes as he showed good footwork to turn inside Andre Wisdom and then smash a shot past Ben Foster. He scored the third from the penalty spot after Joleon Lescott was penalised for handball.
Pochettino said: "I am very proud of the players. I congratulate them because it was a good performance.
“It was never going to be easy after the Sheffield United game but we showed big character and strong mentality and this is important.
"It was very important to start well because after the semi-final always it is difficult, but I think from the beginning we were very aggressive and I think we played very well with and without the ball.
"After 2-0 maybe we played at a slow tempo but after the second half I think we deserved it. I think at the end the result was fair."
"If we show this like we did today, this performance, maybe we have the possibility to arrive (in the top four), but we need to be consistent from here to the end of the season."
Pochettino played down talk of an imminent exit for Emmanuel Adebayor, who did not make the matchday squad.
He said: "We have 27 players in the squad and you need to pick 18 for the game."
