Spurs’ young guns are not only new kids on the block

At next year’s World Cup England’s big European rivals will also parade fresh attacking talent

Any nation would feel blessed to have two attacking players who scored 47 times between them in a Premier League season, even before Marcus Rashford and Jermain Defoe are mentioned. The excitement around Harry Kane and Dele Alli, however, has to be judged against comparable emerging talent in the rest of Europe.

In a British derby that feels more dated by the year, Kane bears down on Scotland with impressive credentials: 31, 28 and 35 goals for Spurs in his past three seasons. He has five from 17 games for England, and looks a speculative bet to one day join the 40-plus honours board of English strikers, with Wayne Rooney, Sir Bobby Charlton, Gary Lineker, Jimmy Greaves and Michael Owen.

This narrow focus on English talent and English hierarchies is harmless enough. All countries would venerate the great finishers listed above. Alli, meanwhile, scored 18 times in the league from an attacking midfield or auxiliary striker position: a return of Frank Lampard proportions. And with Defoe fighting his way back in, and Rashford on high revs over the last few weeks of the season, Gareth Southgate is enviably endowed with players to put the ball where it hurts.

We have, though, said this before. The Scotland game marks the start of a 12-month cycle that obliges Southgate to draw the kind of energy and accuracy from Kane and Alli we see so often at Spurs. He has little control over Rashford’s development. A Manchester United striker who would have been eligible for tomorrow’s England Under-20 World Cup final in South Korea may now have to compete with £60 million signings (starting with Álvaro Morata) after displaying his own worth to Jose Mourinho this spring.

A Scotland-england contest will allow Southgate’s game-changers to glow before a friendly in Paris reminds the English that France are Europe’s biggest over-achievers in player production (75 representatives in this season’s Champions League). For Kane and Rashford, read Antoine Griezmann and Kylian Mbappé, an 18-year-old drawing transfer bids of

£100 million-plus.

The point is that Kane, Rashford and Alli are not operating in a void, as next summer’s Russia World Cup will affirm. Old pros in football

Gareth Southgate is enviably endowed with England players to put the ball where it hurts

remark that the tendency to shout too loud about new stars ignores the reality that rival countries are also making their own exciting discoveries.

Wales already have Gareth Bale and the European champions, Portugal, revolve around the sun of Cristiano Ronaldo. Belgium, another country with an impressive production line, will be able to send Romelu Lukaku and Eden Hazard hunting for goals in Russia.

Germany, the world champions, confess to a perplexing shortfall of strikers, to the extent that Miroslav Klose has begun working for the German FA as a specialist attack coach. Great hopes rest on Leroy Sané, Timo Werner and Serge Gnabry, but German football conceals deficiencies in particular positions by maintaining a high general standard of player.

In Spain, where the ‘false nine’ fashion began, Morata may be the best of the country’s strikers. In Italy, the best under-23 forward is Andrea Belotti, now a regular at international level and another target of rich Premier League clubs. There are good reports about Domenico Berardi from Sassuolo and Fiorentina’s Federico Bernardeschi, who prefers a wide attacking role. An even hotter property is 17-year-old Moise Kean from Juventus.

Taking his cue, Kane says: “At club level, I’ve had a good few seasons. It’s now about taking that next step – international football in big games.”

A less diplomatic take is that Kane and Alli will be judged on Premier League and Champions League football. The old claim that international tournaments are the ultimate measure of talent has been weakened over 20 years. Part of Southgate’s challenge is to persuade his starlets that international football can be more than a ceremonial add-on to a club career.

As Alli has developed so fast, Rashford is the rawest talent at Southgate’s disposal. In January, the England manager was inclined to send him to this summer’s Under-21 European Championship. “In March, it was important he was with the senior squad as we didn’t have Harry Kane, Daniel Sturridge or Danny Welbeck,” Southgate says. “His impact on our games and the way he trained with us was very impressive.

“He then went back to Manchester United and was in their team right the way through to the end of the season, playing in big high-pressure matches. His mentality has been excellent and his performances have been very, very good. It would be inconceivable not to put him in the senior squad.”

So there is a potent goalscoring threat to Scotland in this England squad. It helps, though, to pull the camera back, and imagine the depth and spread of talent at Russia 2018. That way, hope will keep hype in check.