- Harry Kane a second-half substitute in England’s 3-0 win in Greece on Thursday
- The England skipper is however expected to start against Republic of Ireland
- Is Harry Kane right to blast England drop-outs? LISTEN NOW: It’s All Kicking Off! Available wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes every Monday and Thursday
According to Lee Carsley, Harry Kane wasn’t dropped for the game against Greece. Somebody else was just given an opportunity instead.
It’s nonsense, of course. Kane, the England captain, was fit to play but didn’t. So he was dropped. Left out. Excluded. Sat down. Bombed. The fact that Carsley, an honest man, was trying so hard to be diplomatic late on Thursday night in Athens speaks to the enduring sensitivity around Kane and his place in the England team.
The Bayern Munich forward — 47 goals in 42 Bundesliga games and rising — is England’s record goalscorer yet the debate about his worth to his country has simmered away since he struggled to make an impact at last summer’s European Championship.
It’s quite funny, really. Gareth Southgate refused to drop Kane in the summer and there was a fuss about it. Carsley did take him out of his team in Greece and there was a fuss about that too. Hence the interim manager’s spell of tap dancing with the media as he waited to board the bus to the airport.
Thursday was interesting, though. England were different without Kane. They were a little quicker, a little more direct. They played well enough. They were not three goals better than a team ranked 42nd in the world but they did deserve to win.
Ollie Watkins, Kane’s replacement, did well also. He scored after seven minutes and his movement and runs off the shoulder of defenders provided options to the England midfield three of Curtis Jones, Conor Gallagher and Jude Bellingham.
So it was a progressive night. Some will say it was a night that provided us with the glimpse of a future without Kane. Carsley himself spoke about the potential for a group of players that has succeeded at age group level to move on to win the serious stuff.
‘We’ve seen that with Germany in the past and with Spain so why can’t that be England?’ asked Carsley, who took England U21s to European Championship success in 2023.
Carsley is right to see the value of a pathway and of natural development of teams and of players. Equally, anyone who thinks that England will be better off without Kane for the World Cup in America, Mexico and Canada in 2026 is missing the point entirely.
It is not Kane that England need to be without in America in two summers’ time. It is the version of Kane we have recently seen. The tired, sore, ponderous Kane. The Kane worn out and worn down by too much football. The exhausted Kane who dragged himself to Germany in the summer with all the freshness of an out of date salad bowl.
This is the conundrum facing incoming England manager Thomas Tuchel when he starts work on January 1. Not whether to move on without the 31-year-old but just how to get him to the USA ready to do what he can do better than just about anybody else in European football.
The good news is that Tuchel knows Kane well. He signed him for Bayern Munich in 2023 and he delivered. Speaking before Bayern were narrowly eliminated from the Champions League semi-final by Real Madrid last May, he said: ‘We have got a big personality in our dressing room on top of a great goalscorer and someone with the ability to handle pressure.
‘He has brought everything to the team that we could possibly have hoped for.’
The less palatable news is that by the time Kane gets to the World Cup in 20 months’ time —presuming England qualify — he will have been playing football for two years without any kind of real break. He will not be alone in this but these things seems to affect some footballers more than others.
A schedule that began at the Euros last June will take Kane through this season and straight into next summer’s Club World Cup in America with Bayern. That finishes on July 15 and the two or three weeks he gets to cool off after that will pretty much be it before what he hopes will be his third World Cup begins in 2026.
Kane continues to tell people that he feels fresh and fit but the problem is that for England at least, he rarely looks it. He was given half an hour off the bench on Thursday and will play against the Republic of Ireland as Carsley’s spell in charge comes to an end at Wembley on Sunday.
The truth is that England currently do look different when Kane plays. He does slow them down a little bit at times. But — when used properly — he remains the best No9 in Europe. His record proves that, as do his weekly contributions in the Bundesliga. He has 11 goals in 10 league games so far this season with Bayern five points clear at the top of the standings.
Asked about his captain on Thursday, Carsley said: ‘He’s playing on Sunday, yeah he’ll start. He’s captain, he’s so important to the team.
‘It was just a case of having a look at something different, giving someone else the experience who has not had a lot of chances to do so yet. Nothing more than that. I definitely didn’t drop Harry Kane. He’s done well for me every game he’s played and been involved with. It wasn’t a case of being dropped, far from it. It was just a case of giving someone an opportunity.
‘Ollie (Watkins) is playing in the Champions League with Aston Villa. He’s doing really well.
‘It’s great that he got a goal. It looks like a great decision then doesn’t it? Ultimately he should take a lot of credit and confidence from tonight.’
Watkins is enjoying a productive season and he does look as though he has taken steps forward under the astute guidance of Unai Emery at Villa.
On Thursday he was part of an enterprising attacking line-up that also featured the two young flyers Anthony Gordon and Noni Mudueke. It gave England a fresh feel and was fun to watch. But this was Greece in the second tier of the Nations League.
Perspective is required and so is a realisation that this is unlikely to be how England play under Tuchel. Phil Foden, Cole Palmer, Bukayo Saka and possibly Jack Grealish can expect to be the German’s first cabs off the rank for the creative positions.
The challenge will be to fit Kane into a combination that also features the prodigious talent that is Bellingham.
At some point England will have to move on without Kane but that time is not now. He will only be 32 when the next World Cup starts. Tuchel has been hired on an 18-month contract with a clear brief to win the tournament. It feels far fetched to think he can do it without his best goalscorer.
The great imponderable is whether we will ever see Kane in peak condition at a summer tournament again.
