KEEP CALM AND THINK OF RUSSIA

Kane urges fans to get behind tame Lions

People always underestimate the opposition, especially away...

HARRY KANE has told England fans to keep calm and let the team carry on to Russia, after the Three Lions were booed during their 4-0 win in Malta on Friday.

Gareth Southgate’s side laboured to their World Cup qualifying victory over a team ranked No.190 in world football.

There were even chants of “We’re f ****** s***” during a dreadful first half in which they failed to break the deadlock.

Kane eventually got the first goal after 53 minutes to relieve the pressure and three more followed in the closing minutes, from Ryan Bertrand, Danny Welbeck and Kane again. But the late flourish could not mask another bitterly disappointing performance from England, who should have had the game wrapped up well before the interval.

Kane said: “From our point of view, as a country, we just need to stay patient, stay relaxed and see what happens.

“Obviously people can be frustrated, we were frustrated in that first half, of course we always want to blow teams away in the first half.

“But it doesn’t always happen like that, especially games like this, where people always underestimate the opposition, especially away from home.

“They just have to stay patient as we did in the game — we scored four very good goals in the end.

“When people looked at this on Saturday morning, and saw a 4-0 result, they’d say that’s what people would have expected. We’re by no means the finished article, there’s still a lot for us to work on.

“So we’ve got to stay patient as a country together, it’s not going to happen overnight.

“There are a lot of very good teams — France winning 4-0 on Thursday showed that — so there are still a lot of preparations from now until the World Cup and it’s a big game against Slovakia where we can put a big marker down.”

Kane and Co will face much tougher opponents than Malta at Wembley tomorrow — visitors Slovakia are second in Group F, with genuine qualification ambitions of their own.

The Tottenham striker, whose club side have struggled at the national stadium, realises that long-suffering Three Lions fans might be struggling to connect with the team after so many recent disappointments. Kane added: “That’s understandable. At the end of the day, we’ve done well at this stage before, but it’s all about the tournament.

“That’s nothing we can control for now, all we can try to do is qualify, try to play good football, try to learn and get better.

“Coming to places like Malta, they’re always going to put plenty of men behind the ball and make it difficult.

“But the game plan all along was to be patient and composed, and in certain areas we knew they’d tire and that’s what happened, and it was a good 4-0 result.”

Tottenham have lost and drawn in their two games at Wembley so far this season, carrying on last season’s miserable record.

Kane added: “We seem to do all right there for England, so for me and the Spurs boys it’d be good to win and take that confidence into

the Premier League.”