Beat Poland and our Qatar dream is on, says Harry

HARRY KAne ended his seven-game international goal drought before urging england to take a giant step towards World Cup qualification in Wednesday’s crucial showdown against Poland. The captain struck his first england goal in almost 500 days with the opener in last night’s win over Albania to maintain their 100-per-cent start to Qatar 2022 qualification. But Kane believes Gareth Southgate’s side can plant one foot in Qatar if they defeat Robert Lewandowski and Co at Wembley. ‘We’re not the finished article yet but we’re in a good place, we’ve won two games — people expected us to win but we still had to go out and do it,’ said the Spurs star. ‘Poland will be the toughest game in the group but we are ready for that. If we can win that one, it puts us in a great position. ‘I thought it was a really good performance tonight, maybe a bit slow at the start but we changed our formation and I think that helped. ‘Sometimes you go through spells when things don’t go your way, that is part of being a striker. You just have to stay focused and it was great to get three points.’ england dominated the vast majority of the game against the Albanians but Southgate was not entirely satisfied with his team’s performance. ‘We controlled it very well, but we should have scored more goals,’ said the england boss. ‘There were some decisions that needed to be better to either score more or not invite pressure. I’m very pleased with two good performances (including last week’s win in the opening World Cup qualifier against San Marino) but I’m pushing for a bit more because that’s the standard we want to set to be a top team. ‘We have to keep pushing this group, there’s lots of talk about what we might be. But if we want to deliver we have got to have really high standards. We can get better. ‘We enjoy a victory but I think we can improve.’ Spurs star Kane set up Mason Mount’s second, but his role within the team, particularly with regards to his tendency to drop deeper, was a key talking point. ‘Dropping deep is a part of his game that is exceptional,’ said Southgate. ‘It was difficult to find space in the first half, so it meant he dragged their centre-back out and created more space for others. ‘I like that part of his game. He helps to overload the midfield and as long as we get runners going in to exploit that space it’s not a problem.’ Full-back Luke Shaw added: ‘We controlled the tempo well at times and their only chances came from mistakes from us. ‘The pitch didn’t help but no excuses, we know we made a couple of mistakes. Gareth said after the game that we needed to control it better as better teams might punish us.’