King Harry
Kane hits 18-minute hat-trick as England secure their place at Euro 2020 in 1,000th game Southgate and Sterling hit out as Wembley fans boo Gomez over bust-up at training base
The 1,000th England game and after all those years still there are some things that remain beyond explanation when it comes to the team’s support, the latest of which was the booing of Joe Gomez by parts of the Wembley crowd.
There are only a few ways to spoil a night that saw the team seal Euro 2020 qualification, and the youngest England side in 60 years score seven. One them is a crowd turning on a player who has found himself at the centre of a drama through no fault of his own. That noise around parts of the stadium when Gomez came on with 20 minutes to play was the unmistakable disapproving drone of parts of a Wembley crowd calling it wrong again.
They had been treated to the kind of goal avalanche England only get against a bad team trying to play like a good one, which was Montenegro’s approach as they left the back door open for a Harry Kane first-half hat-trick amid other goals. Even so, there remains a chronic inability among parts of an England crowd to grasp the nuances of events around the team.
The ignorance of some was breathtaking. So much so that Raheem Sterling, excluded from this game for attacking Gomez at St George’s Park on Monday, tweeted after the match to condemn it and emphasise that his team-mate was blameless in their confrontation.
Gareth Southgate was disbelieving, too. “I don’t get it,” he said, and perhaps we never will. Sometimes even seven goals are not enough. Sterling had made a brief appearance before the game to pick up a Football Association trinket for reaching 50 caps.
There was also the first England goal for Tammy Abraham, and a debut at last for James Maddison. To mark the big occasion some old boys were brought out at half-time with the score already at 5-0 and it was possible to imagine a second half strike-force of Wayne Rooney and Trevor Francis. England were demolishing a defensively feeble opponent, and Kane was passing some famous old names with every goal that took him to 31 in 44 caps and fifth place in the all-time list.
Sterling will start in Pristina on Sunday against Kosovo for a game that will have nothing riding on it now, after the home side’s defeat by the Czech Republic.
Montenegro fielded the most open defence England are ever likely to face in this qualifying campaign or another 1,000 games. The cannon fodder of previous years – Andorra, San Marino – used to pack the defence. Montenegro had sportingly decided to have a go and, while they created a couple of good chances that tested Jordan Pickford, their defending created many more for their hosts.
There were three Kane goals inside 37 minutes, and a hat-trick of assists for Ben Chilwell in 24 minutes. More or less everything struck or headed goalward found the net, save a few heroic stops from goalkeeper Milan Mijatovic. There was a moment when the centre-half, Marko Simic, slid in for a simple tackle, missed the ball and just continued sliding into touch. It was one of those nights.
Alex Oxlade-chamberlain’s first England goal since June 2017 came in the 11th minute, drilled in from Chilwell’s cross. The second was a Kane header when he held off the Montenegro challenge with considerable ease. Another simple Kane header from another Chilwell cross six minutes later made it three. Marcus Rashford lashed in the fourth, after Harry Maguire’s header had been well saved by Mijatovic. Kane completed his hattrick well before half-time when he brushed off more second-rate Montenegro challenges to score.
Still, Pickford made two fine saves, the first from Simic’s header direct from a corner after 27 minutes and then again when Montenegro captain Fatos Beciraj ran clear.
The Montenegro coach switched to a five-man defence for the second half and the goal-rate slowed down from there. Nevertheless, one of his centre-halves, Aleksandar Sofranac, did contribute England’s sixth with an inexplicably decisive finish that redirected Mason Mount’s shot past his own goalkeeper. It marked another small landmark on this night of milestones: the total of own goals scored by England’s opponents over the 1,000 games now stands at 54. That makes the collective of blundering opposition scorers the highest single contributors of goals in the history of the England team.
On as a second-half substitute, Abraham slid in to get his first England goal from the cross of Jadon Sancho. Abraham had replaced Kane, who had already passed Frank Lampard, Alan Shearer, Nat Lofthouse and Tom Finney in the all-time goalscorers’ list. Maddison was given more than half an hour. It was a night when everyone should have been satisfied and looking forward to the summer with a degree of optimism, yet Gomez’s treatment meant that was not entirely the case.
Montenegro (4-3-2-1) Mijatovic (Levski Sofia) 7; Vesovic (Legia Warsaw) 4, Sofranac (Sutjeska Niksic) 5, Simic (Pakhtakor Tashkent) 5, Radunovic (Astra Giurgiu) 4; Hocko (Royal Excel Mouscron) 5, Lagator (PFC Sochi) 5, Vukcevic (Levante) 5; Jovovic (Jablonec) 5, Haksabanovic (West Ham Utd) 5; Beciraj (Maccabi Netanya) 5. Subs Raspopovic (Rijeka) for Radunovic 46, Jankovic (SPAL) for Jovovic 65, Boljevic (Standard Liege) for Haksabanovic 75.