Tottenham star Harry Kane entering most challenging period of his career - but he can handle it, says Hugo Lloris

Jack Rosser @JackRosser_27 December 2017

Hugo Lloris says Tottenham record-breaker Harry Kane will now face a more difficult spell of his career, but that he’s more than capable of achieving more.

The Spurs striker scored his eighth 8th hat-trick of 2017 in all competitions during Boxing Day’s 5-2 win over Southampton, surpassing Alan Shearer’s Premier League record for goals in a calendar year and overtaking Lionel Messi in the European goalscoring charts over the last 12 months.

Since being dubbed a ‘one-season-wonder’ the England striker has won consecutive Golden Boots and now broken a nine-year cycle of goalscoring dominance from Messi and his Real Madrid counterpart, Cristiano Ronaldo.

And the Spurs captain says their top scorer deserves all the plaudits he’s getting after an outstanding year, but that he’s now entering a more difficult period of his career.

“He's up there and he deserves all the praise at the moment,” Lloris told reporters.

“Now the most difficult is coming because he has to stick to this level. But with his mentality and his quality I have no doubts. He's one of the best and he's going to keep showing it.”

While Lloris says the most difficult spell is coming, he has no doubts the 24-year-old is capable of taking on the challenge and breaking further records.

“Because the perception from outside is different now. He's got another consideration from the fans, from the media,” Lloris said when asked why it would become more challenging.

“But I think he has his head on his shoulders and he has a lot of humility and that's the key. He will keep working hard and I'm sure he will keep breaking records because that's his mentality.

In Pictures | Premier League Boxing Day fixtures | 26/12/2017

1/70

“He believes in himself a lot,” the Frenchman continued.

“That's the most important thing. It means he's able to do fantastic things. His passion and his hard work.

“In football, when there is a record you always try to break it. It's true that players like Messi and Ronaldo it's difficult to catch them but Harry is up there. And he's still a young player with better things to achieve.”

Kane could see the next record tumble away at Swansea in the New Year as he currently stands one short of Spurs’ top goalscorer in the Premier League, Teddy Sheringham.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in