Harry Kane fought back the tears as he reflected on a painful week for Tottenham following the death of fitness coach Gian Piero Ventrone.
The 61-year-old died earlier this week after being diagnosed with leukaemia days earlier, with many Spurs players taking to social media to pay tribute to a hugely popular member of Antonio Conte’s backroom staff.
Ahead of their 1-0 win over Brighton, in which Kane scored the only goal of the match, Spurs warmed up in t-shirts with “Always in our hearts Gian Piero” on and a minute’s applause was held, with Conte visibly emotional.
Kane pointed to the sky after scoring his goal and in his post-match interview struggled to discuss what the club have been dealing with in recent days.
“It’s been a difficult week to say the least,” Kane told Sky Sports as he became choked up.
“It was nice to get the win today.”
He added: “Really proud of the boys today, it’s been a tough week. To come here away from home, a really difficult place to come, and we didn’t play as well as we know we can but we dug deep when we needed to and it’s a really important win.”
In a Twitter post after the news was announced on Thursday, Ryan Sessegnon said he was “devastated” and hailed Ventrone’s role in “always pushing us to our limits” as part of Conte’s staff.
Sessegnon also started at the Amex and he was relieved that the team were able to get the job done for the fitness coach.
“100% [it was for Ventrone],” Sessegnon said.
“We knew we had to perform today and obviously we wanted to win because of him. Thankfully we did that today.”
