Bliss for Calvert-Lewin as Kane puts feet up
GARETH SOUTHGATE looks set to let his head rule his heart by leaving Harry Kane on the bench against San Marino.
Instead, he will throw down the gauntlet to Dominic Calvert-Lewin and the other strikers in the squad to make themselves into the new Luther Blissett.
The former Watford striker had just nine minutes of international experience under his belt when he was trusted to lead the line against Luxembourg in the place of Paul Mariner early in Sir Bobby Robson’s tenure as England manager four decades ago.
He responded with a hat-trick in a 9-0 win – the only goals he scored in 14 international appearances.
In the same way, with Kane, right, heavily loaded with games recently, Southgate is willing to see the sense of facing the world’s worst team without him – but expects no let up in the strike rate.
“We know what these big England nights mean,” Southgate said. “We know where we were for certain qualifiers.
“I’ve got a Luther Blissett hat-trick in my head from when I was a kid watching England play.
“There will be something in the game that will stick with the kids today. We should never lose sight of that romance. Of course, the game has to evolve always and we have to make sure that we’re at the forefront of the right sort of changes, but the game is about the love of the game, it’s about the fans. “And the national team is the biggest example of that.” That said, the last thing Southgate expects of the players he sends out is for them to freeze. “There’s times when, as a player, I felt we went into some of these games with an apprehension – wondering what might go wrong,” he said. “What if it takes us 60 minutes to score? “Players have just got to go and enjoy their football.
“It’s a particular type of challenge that they face.
“They should enjoy it. They’ve got the chance to play at Wembley. To have the ball.
“They are going to face a team that are going to wear their heart on their sleeve, defend as resiliently as they can.
“We’ve got to make sure that our movement and our slickness of play is good enough to go and score goals.”