Gareth Southgate expects Harry Kane return “sooner rather than later”

Tottenham Hotspur are still sweating over the ankle injury to Harry Kane. England are too, as evident by manager Gareth Southgate being asked about Kane’s injury and his recovery at a press conference today at Hotspur Way training center, where the Three Lions are training this week.

Southgate is preparing to face Italy in a friendly tomorrow at Wembley Stadium, and suggested that Kane is in good hands and would be be back before we know it.

“I don’t know exactly when he’ll be back, but he was very confident it would be sooner rather than later. His professionalism and his mindset is very positive. I would imagine he’ll be back fairly quickly.

“Like all of these lads, none of them want to miss games – they’ve got big matches coming up. They all want to be involved in those big games and play a part for their club and be available for the summer.

“They get good medical treatment, but they’re also very disciplined in terms of how they recover and that gives them every chance of getting back as quickly as possible.”

OK, real talk? Southgate has no idea when Harry Kane is coming back, and those comments are pretty clear evidence of that. However, being the manager of England, it’s not at all unreasonable to suspect he’s been in conversation with Tottenham management about the status of England’s best hope for World Cup success. After all, England are at Spurs’ training ground and Pochettino’s office is almost literally just down the hallway.

And hey, these are still pretty positive comments. We’ve already seen photos of Kane talking to Southgate without any sort of ankle brace, and if Harry was looking at a long time out we probably would be hearing things a lot more along the lines of “We’re just letting Harry concentrate on his recovery” than “He’ll probably be back soonish.”

I have serious doubts that Kane will be available for the Easter Sunday match at Stamford Bridge against Chelsea, but all the circumstantial evidence is pointing to Harry Kane returning to training in the near future. That’s great news for Tottenham.