Kanoute ready to fight for his place

STRIKER Frederic Kanoute is vowing to earn a regular first-team place at Tottenham after completing his 4million move from West Ham today.

Kanoute is determined to put behind him the painful memories of last season's relegation at Upton Park, as well as his injury problems.

Having passed exhaustive tests on his groin, the Frenchman was taking part in his first training session with his new club today - along with Spurs' three other leading forwards.

Glenn Hoddle has spent more than 10m in bringing Kanoute, Helder Postiga and Bobby Zamora to join Robbie Keane - although Teddy Sheringham, Steffen Iversen and now Matthew Etherington, who joined West Ham for 500,000 as part of the Kanoute deal, have left the club.

Even though Hoddle could use Keane in a deeper role behind a front two, Kanoute accepts he is not assured of a regular place.

The striker said: "I'm one of those players who says that I need and want to deserve my place.

"I don't want to come here and say I must play whatever happens.

So I'm going to work hard on the training ground, because if we want to achieve things here we need several strikers.

"When I moved to West Ham from Lyon I had something to prove, and now it's the same again. It's just another level, and I hope I will keep going forward.

"I want to win things as a team. I want to be in the first part of the table, but we can only do this step by step.

"I just want to win again because it was very hard for us as a team last season."

While West Ham suffered the ignominy of relegation, Kanoute made only a minimal impact as he started just 12 games due to a groin problem. However, he is confident he has put those injury worries behind him after a full preseason training with the Hammers.

"It was a bad one last season. But I've done a good rehabilitation without any problems and I'm just looking to play for my new club," he added.

Kanoute admits other clubs have been interested in him in the past.

But he feels the time is now right for him to move on because he has been desperate to play in the Premiership again.

"It's in every player's mind to play at the upper level. They don't want to be relegated," he said.

"From my point of view, it wasn't a case of leaving at any price because I couldn't stand staying in the First Division.

"It was just time for me to move and do something else. I had been at West Ham for three years and I had a few contacts with other clubs before.

"I didn't want to go then - but now it was time to go. For every player, there comes a time when you want to achieve something at another club and have another experience.

"I wanted to come back into the Premiership and step forward from a sporting point of view. I just wanted to achieve something and take on a new challenge."

Kanoute also hopes the move could also benefit his international career - having fallen behind Djibril Cisse as well as Thierry Henry, David Trezeguet and Sylvain Wiltord, in the France pecking order.

"I'm here first of all to think about the club and to reach some goals here.

After that, I hope the national team comes," he said.

(c)2003. Associated Newspapers Ltd.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.