Harry Kane: “The perfect start to 2019”

Harry Kane underlined the importance of winning at Cardiff on New Year’s Day after Saturday’s jolt against Wolves.

A run of five-successive victories in the Premier League was ended by the men from Molineux after we’d led at half-time at Wembley.

The disappointment was tangible after that loss and you felt the players were revved up for a potentially tricky, physical test at the Cardiff City Stadium.

Neil Warnock’s men came into it on the back of a first away win at Leicester and fine home form – but we took the game by the scruff of the neck with three goals in the opening 26 minutes, including the opener from Harry inside three.

“We bounced back in the best way possible,” said Harry. “It’s always a tough test when you come away against teams fighting for points to stay up. You know you will be in for a battle.

“In the first half we exploited the space with players dropping deep, players running in behind and that made it difficult for them.

"We started the game on the front foot, got a bit of luck with the first goal but we got into the positions, into the box, got ourselves 1-0 up and pushed on from there. The other two goals were well worked - Christian great finish, Sonny great finish and we caused them problems.

“Even in the second half we controlled the game, created a few more chances that we maybe could have taken but we were comfortable in behind as well.

“We learned our lesson after the weekend and it was important we won this game. Overall, it was the perfect way to start the year. Now we look forward to the next one.”

It was put to Harry that one of the great characteristics of the team is the ability to recover from setbacks.

The loss against City on 29 October was followed by six wins on the spin. After losing at the Emirates on 2 December, we won six and drew at Barcelona in the Champions League.

“For sure,” he added. “Look, we’ve probably lost more games than we would have liked this season but we haven’t drawn either and we’ve come back to winnings ways pretty quickly.

“It’s a busy period, we’ve played plenty of games and we’ve the FA Cup coming up now as well, a big semi-final (in the Carabao Cup against Chelsea) so for us, it’s about recovering well, getting back into it and onto the next one.”