Ryan Sessegnon: ‘Nobody is superhuman but you can try to be as close as possible to it’

The most exacting element of Antonio Conte’s notorious pre-season programme, in the face of stern competition, was put into place during a spell of 30C heat in Seoul. Tottenham had trained for two hours and then, cajoled by the fitness coach, Gian Piero Ventrone, were told to run 42 lengths of the World Cup Stadium pitch. Anyone whose June had been eaten into by international duty was let off with a mere 30; Ryan Sessegnon was not among those blessed with such fortune.

“I knew it was going to be tough but it was worse than I thought,” he says in reference to the blistering intensity demanded during Spurs’ preparations. “Those 42 runs in Korea, the amount of running, it was crazy. I wasn’t being sick like a few of the players were, but I was on my knees.”

Perhaps it worked because Sessegnon has begun the season standing tall. His first Premier League goal for Tottenham also opened the club’s account for 2022-23 and offset what had been a sticky start against Southampton. They won at a canter from there and their left wing-back was relentless: Sessegnon looked every inch a wide all-rounder from Conte’s model and could feel the summer regimen paying off.

“Definitely [fitness] makes a difference,” he says. “When I’m on the pitch and feel like I’m in my stride and have the energy to go up and down, you almost feel unstoppable. You feel like you can go past anyone, do anything on the pitch, you really feel yourself.”

There is, famously, no hiding place for a wing-back under Conte. “It’s probably one of the hardest positions in the team at the moment,” Sessegnon says. “He wants you to contribute going forward but defensively as well, so you have to have that engine to go up and down. That’s one of my strong suits but it can