Harry Kane backs Mauricio Pochettino to remain with Tottenham and take them 'another step forward'

Tottenham's media team remain under orders to shut down all questions surrounding Mauricio Pochettino's future. Harry Kane, however, refused to duck the subject entirely as a press officer again felt compelled to stop the issue being raised by journalists.

"We are fully behind the manager," said the England captain ahead of Sunday's clash with potential suitors Manchester United.  "We love the way he works. We’ve built a great team and a great unit over the last three or four years. It’s down to us to continue that and take another step forward if we can."

Kane said some long-awaited silverware is that next step: "It’s about turning that into a trophy." Under Pochettino, Kane believes Spurs have "changed perceptions" around the club. "We are at the stage now where we have a mature team. We are not young any more. It’s important we keep ourselves at this high level, at the top."

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The 25-year-old said his Spurs team must keep their intensity after a busy run of games. United arrive at Wembley on the back of a warm weather break, while Tottenham were in midweek action with a hard-fought 1-0 League Cup semi-final first leg victory against Chelsea.

"United have been in great form," he said. "It will be another tough game, but we feel confident against the bigger teams. We know we can play with the ball and we know we can dig deep like we did (against Chelsea), and catch teams on the counter-attack. We are going to need both those attributes."

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, unbeaten in his role as interim manager at Old Trafford, was a striker Kane studied as a schoolboy. "He had a great mentality to come on and change the game," Kane said. "He has gone into management  there and changed something around because they are doing well so far."

Having beaten United in their last two league encounters, Kane said the team is full of belief that "when we are on good form, we can dominate any team in Europe". He added: "We’ve done it in the Champions League and we’ve done it against the big teams in certain games. But it’s about consistency. United are coming off some great results, they are going to be confident and they are going to have a lot of energy. They won’t have played midweek like we had. We have to bring that same energy."

Kane scored his 160th Spurs goal with a controversial penalty against Chelsea to overtake double winner Cliff Jones into fourth on Tottenham's goalscoring list.  He remains 106 goals behind all-time top scorer Jimmy Greaves. "We'll see," said Kane of his chances of passing the record. "Hopefully. That would be nice."