Tottenham Hotspur head coach Ange Postecoglou has admitted that Harry Kane was 'unlikely' to stay at the club this season ahead of his move to Bayern Munich.
90min reported on Thursday that Spurs had finally relented and accepted an £86.4m (€100m) bid from the German champions. Kane will fly to Germany on Friday to finalise the transfer.
Spurs boss Postecoglou insisted last week that he simply wanted the saga resolved as soon as possible to plan for the season ahead.
Ahead of Sunday's trip to Brentford for his Premier League debut, Postecoglou was understandably asked for an update on Kane.
"It's fair to say I don't have a blow by blow account of the whole thing but fair to say it's progressed to the point where it looks like it's going to happen. We move forward without Harry. It gives us clarity and unless something unforeseen happens we'll move on," he said.
"I didn't see the point in [pitching myself] because whatever I was going to say was going to be irrelevant. I could plan his grand vision but I'm sure he'd heard it all before. My feeling was we'll get to know each other, that's the best way to navigate this early bit. Having said that, in my mind after that initial conversation [on the first day], he'd made up his mind that if the clubs agreed he'd go but he was also happy to stay if they didn't.
"It's best Harry speaks for himself on the decision but there's no doubts he's one of the greats of this football club. His record speaks for himself. I'm only new in the building but I'm certainly not the spokesman for this football club in declaring people's status but I think it's clear Harry Kane is one of the greats.
"I think if you're involved in football as long as I have, you know clubs are not going to talk to each other without the player knowing. We weren't talking to Wolfsburg without knowing Micky van de Ven wanted to come.
"[Harry and I] had a chat on the first day. He was up front and honest that if they could agree a deal then he would go. He wanted it decided by the first game and that was my preference as well."
READ MORE ON HARRY KANE'S PROPOSED TRANSFER TO BAYERN MUNICH
When asked how Tottenham will go about replacing Kane, Postecoglou added: "I don't think there's a like for like replacement for Harry. We've been planning for this for a while to be fair. It doesn't take too much investigative work to know that this was going to happen. Our business up to now reflects that.
"I don't think it works that way [giving Daniel Levy a list of strikers to get]. It's not like the family shopping list to go and get milk and bread for the kids. My whole strategy has been that Harry was unlikely to be around so it wasn't like we had a pow wow this morning."
90min revealed earlier this week that Spurs representatives had touched base with other forwards, including Gent starlet Gift Orban.
LISTEN NOW TO 90MIN'S TALKING TRANSFERS PODCAST
On this week's edition of Talking Transfers, part of the 90min podcast network, Scott Saunders is joined by Toby Cudworth, Graeme Bailey and Sean Walsh to discuss the ever-changing Moises Caicedo saga, Harry Kane's move to Bayern Munich and more!
If you can't see this embed, click here to listen to the podcast!
This article was originally published on 90min as Ange Postecoglou confirms Harry Kane transfer & how Tottenham will replace him.
