The Tottenham striker has gone from being 22-year-old hopeful to marked main man but says he is fitter than ever and mentally ready for life in the spotlight

Loose lips used to sink ships; now they create Twitter storms. Only the Premier Sports commentator knows where he got his information from on Wednesday but when he shared it, during the TV channel’s live coverage of Tottenham Hotspur’s Audi Cup friendly against Milan in Munich, it quickly went forth and multiplied.

Harry Kane, he stated, was “actually not in the [Tottenham] squad today. Initially, he was planned to be in the squad. He is not here this afternoon. He was here yesterday. And there are talks at the moment that there has been a huge offer from Manchester United … ”

When Kane wandered towards the Tottenham team bus after the game, still in his kit, having been an unused substitute – the striker had played for 86 minutes against Real Madrid the previous day – he was unaware of the latest noise.

This is Kane’s life these days. It is the price of his sudden rise to the A-list and that is where he rolls after, to paraphrase a line that he uses, he achieved as much last season as he might have hoped for in his entire career.

The numbers retain an arresting quality. Kane did not start a Premier League match last time out until 9 November but he finished with 21 goals in the competition, which was second only to Manchester City’s Sergio Agüero. He got 31 in all competitions, and there was also the debut goal for England against Lithuania with this third touch after coming on.

To add to the sparkle, this is a boyhood Tottenham fan, a local lad, who has risen through the ranks and was just not supposed to do the stuff that he did – such as head the late winner against Arsenal in his first north London derby. There has been a magnetism to his storylines.

Everybody wants a piece of him. Greg Dyke, the FA chairman, cited Kane as the example to other clubs when he outlined his vision for the advancement of home-grown players last March. At the end of the season, when Tottenham visited Sydney, Kane popped out to the Westfield shopping centre only to be mobbed by fans. The club had to send a minibus to rescue him. And this summer, there has been the combustible beat of the interest from United.

Kane smiles when he reflects on his situation, and how far he has come since last summer. “I was on the bench for the opening game of the season at West Ham and I managed to come on and get an assist [for Eric Dier’s last-minute winner], which was a good feeling for me,” he says. “But yeah, obviously it’s different now.”

Kane needed some headspace after the season, which finished for him on 24 June, when he and the England Under-21 squad were knocked out of the European Championship in the Czech Republic at the group phase. He went away with his girlfriend to New York and the Bahamas, and they switched off.

Kane got to play a bit of golf, which he loves and, unsurprisingly, is excellent at. “My handicap is four, so I’m all right, I’m getting it down,” he says. “I’ve seen a few golf bandits in football, don’t worry about that, but I’m not one of them. It’s hard to play during the season but I managed to play a bit while I was away. I kept fit in the gym, too.

“The Bahamas was quiet on the beach. I didn’t really look at my phone and I just got away from it all. I achieved so many things … stuff I wanted to do in a career that I did in one season and that was a lot to take in. It was important I got away from everything and that I could just remember what I had done and be proud of it.

“I obviously didn’t have as much time off as some of the other lads but I kept myself fit while I was away. I’m in good shape. I’m probably as fit as I ever have been this season and, mentally, I cleared my mind. I’ve come back in a really good place and I’m really looking forward to starting again.”

The script calls for Kane to kick off the league season against United at Old Trafford on Saturday lunchtime. It had to be United. For the record and in response to the links, Kane has said that he sees himself being at Tottenham “for a very long time”. Tottenham would not and could not entertain an offer for him, no matter how big. Can you imagine if they did?

The spotlight on Kane is sure to be intense, not only against United but from week to week. He is no longer the 22-year-old hopeful, rather the main man. And, after his heroics last season, he knows he will be a marked man. Kane does not care. He is ready.

“Of course, defenders will know about me but I am looking forward to the challenge, of seeing what I come up against and how I deal with it,” Kane says. “You come up against challenges in life and it’s how you deal with them that defines you. I am confident in my ability, as I always have been, and that I will be capable of maintaining my form, if not improving, year in, year out.”

Kane’s equilibrium protects him not only against defenders but the nagging concern that it will simply be impossible for him to repeat the form, statistics and, yes, good fortune of last season, when everything he touched turned to goals. A drop in his trajectory must surely happen at some point.

“Yeah, but that’s football,” Kane says. “I try never to get too high or too low. You have to keep that medium. All goalscorers go on droughts. It is how you cope with that. And it is not just about scoring, it is about what you bring to the team, bringing others into play and getting assists.”

Kane needs assistance himself. With Emmanuel Adebayor and Roberto Soldado for sale and having played no part in pre-season, he is the club’s only available, established striker, although the manager, Mauricio Pochettino, believes that Érik Lamela or Nacer Chadli could do a job there.

“I am sure the manager will want to get another striker in for competition for me,” Kane says. “You always train harder and play better when there is someone trying to get your place. I have been the one trying to get someone else’s place for the last few years and now it’s the other way round, so that is again something I have got to deal with.”

Kane says that Pochettino has not said anything to him about the captaincy, for which he is a candidate. “From what I assume, Hugo [Lloris] is the captain and Jan [Vertonghen] is the second,” Kane says. “It looks like I will be third. That’s what it was [in the second half of] last season and what has happened in pre-season. I just can’t wait to get going. The last couple of weeks feel like ages.”