Skipper glad hosts put on fitting show

ENGLAND skipper Harry Kane’s focus was on team goals, rather than his personal tally, after the match.

He said: “A few of the boys have asked me, it’s 30 (goals) or 31 I think. Hopefully there are a few more to come.

“But the important thing is we have qualified. We’ve had one slip-up in the whole group and responded really well to the defeat and got the job done.

“We wanted to put on a show in the 1,000th game and the score at half-time really showed that.

“I think we were expected to win the group, as we have done, but football is never easy and there are a lot of upsets. We’ve qualified and we are proud of that but we have got a lot of work to do before the summer.”

Asked about the omission of Sterling, Kane said: “We made a decision as a group. The gaffer spoke to me and a few of the other senior players in the team and that’s the decision we have come to.

“Raz (Raheem) has apologised, as we know, and for us we are a group, things happen and we move on and this is a great way to show it.”

Asked if he thought Sterling might feel marginalised by what has happened, Kane replied: “Not that I know of.

“He’s been good around camp and been training really well and, of course, he will have been disappointed not to play tonight but I’m sure he will be ready to go and try to get on the pitch on Sunday.”

Southgate told ITV after the match: “The attacking play, in the first half in particular, had some really good movement and super quality of passing and crossing and clinical finishing.

“We know it’s a group we should win comfortably but you can see across Europe there are other countries who have struggled to score goals like we have.

“We have struggled in the past against lower ranked teams who defend in numbers but we’ve got players who can open those teams up and a type of play that can do that.

“But we have to get both ends of the pitch right. We conceded a couple of chances tonight that we shouldn’t and they are the sort of things we will need to be better at.

“There is still work to do without the ball but we are improving.”