Kane can’t wait to play catch
England skipper ready to deliver against Panama, while Southgate will hope the supporting cast chip in with goals too
IT i s a m e a s u re o f Ha r r y K a n e ’s relentless desire to reach the top that rather than shying away from comparisons with Cristiano Ronaldo, he embraces them.
The Tottenham striker was somewhat mischievously asked in the build-up to England’s World Cup opener whether Ronaldo had put him under pressure in the Golden Boot race by netting a hat-trick for Portugal in their first game.
“Hopefully I’ll score a hat-trick and we’ll be level,” he replied. He meant it, too. By his own standards, then, a double against Tunisia was not quite up to scratch but for Gareth Southgate and just about everybody else, Kane had delivered when it truly mattered.
The profligacy of his team-mates only underlined just how clinical — and vital — he has become. The 24-year-old had three shots and scored t wi c e , the winner coming in stoppage-time to make this week’s build-up to Sunday’s clash with Panama much more relaxed.
Raheem Sterling’s early miss was indicative of a man who has not scored in 21 internationals — he didn’t know the offside flag had been raised earlier in the move — Jesse Lingard and John Stones also wasted presentable opportunities and Tunisia’s physical approach to marking Kane at set-pieces — tantamount to rugby-tackling him — was a further indication of the extent to which he is viewed as a potent threat.
The focus will be on Kane once again in Nizhny Novgorod this weekend, but others must come to the fore to avoid Pep Guardiola’s “Harry Kane team” jibe, which was aimed at Tottenham last season, becoming applicable to England as well.
“We are more than just Harry Kane,” midfielder Jordan Henderson told Standard Sport. “Obviously, he is a big part of what we are about. His goalscoring record speaks for itself, but we have a lot of good attacking players who can chip in with goals and assists.
That is important for us. We have players who can support Harry but also contribute t h e ms e lve s . T h ey a re fantastic players in their own right.
“We just want to win games. Harry is a top player, he scores goals for fun and that has to be seen as a big plus for us. But it is not everything, it’s not all we have. We have other options and players who have performed when he hasn’t been in the side.
“Although, I won’t mind
if he does score a load of goals at the World Cup and everyone says we’re just a one-man team because it means we’re winning. We will be happy about that. The most important thing is everyone stays together as a team and performs to the level that we know we can.”
Sterling fe l l s h o r t o f h i s b e s t in Volgograd after a bright start and could pay the price, with Southgate considering replacing him with Marcus Rashford in addition to the likely enforced change resulting from Dele Alli’s thigh injury.
Ruben Loftus-Cheek is favourite to fill in for Alli, although the notes held by Southgate’s assistant Steve Holland at training yesterday indicated Sterling could be dropped into a deeper midfield role.
Either way, England need to replicate the opening 25-minute spell against Tunisia in which they carved open defensive-minded opponents almost at will with the kind of incisive combination play Southgate claims has defined so many of their training sessions.
The only negative during that period was their failure to translate that d o mi n a n c e to the scoreline, but Henderson believes that sharpness will soon come to the fore.
“Everyone has been looking sharp in front of goal,” he said. “We need that. Scoring goals at the highest level is the hardest part and you obviously need to do that to win games.
“You only have to look at Jamie Vardy, Marcus, Raheem and so on... they are all top players. They can do everything,
Harry is not all we have — although I won’t mind if he scores loads of goals and we’re called a one-man team Jordan Henderson