Doherty: My plan is to stay at Tottenham and compete for places. The coming season is exciting

Tottenham hotspur defender Doherty’s season ended prematurely due to a knee injury. With pre-season preparations approaching, he hopes to be in good physical shape for the new campaign. In an interview with Football.London, Doherty discussed spurs’ pre-season training and his own future.

“It’s normal for us to run in Seoul,” Doherty said. We did that the week before in London, so I don’t know if there’s a team in better physical shape than us at the start of the season. It’s totally different to anything I’ve done before, we’ve been training really hard, it’s been the toughest pre-season I’ve ever had. Even though you may feel like your brain is suffering during training, you’ll feel proud when it’s over. You go to bed at night and think, ‘I worked hard today. ‘”

“When you’re training, the only thing you think about is not giving up. The manager has instilled in us a determination to carry on and never give up. The truth is we all love [Spurs fitness coach] Gian del Piero. It’s funny because that’s what we players say when we communicate. We all have great respect for him and will do whatever he asks.”

“There’s a lot of competition for places in the squad and that’s not a bad thing because it makes you raise your standards and keep working hard. You want to earn your place for your contributions, not for someone else to hand it to you. We want to compete with each other for position.”

“Of course I feel I will stay at Tottenham, I have not been told anything else. My plan is to stay here and compete for places and we have an exciting season ahead of us. Why would I want to go anywhere else?”

“I spent a lot of time at the club this summer because I had to recover my knee. I had no choice. I had to do it. I want to be ready for pre-season training.