Harry Kane is not one to bristle but deep down he must be weary of the line of questioning each autumn tends to provoke. After the match in Trnava on Sunday he was yet again contemplating the implications of a scoreless performance.
“There was a lot of talk last year about me not scoring and I ended up proving a lot of people wrong,” he said. “People will talk this year as well. It’s what they’re doing now. But I am confident in my ability. I know that, if I continue doing what I’m doing, the goals will come.”
They surely will, just as they did when he ended up claiming the Golden Boot having registered 32 goals for club and country for the second season in succession despite that traditional slow start.
Yet that particular quirk of his senior career – that he has never scored a league goal before 26 September – is unhelpful at the moment. Kane, perhaps unfairly, came to personify England’s struggles at the European Championship.
The haunted look he wore in Nice, as the team panicked and surrendered to Iceland, came to sum up the team’s exit. The Tottenham Hotspur forward had appeared bewildered as his free-kicks flew dismally out of play, perplexed as to how form could desert him so cruelly and completely. It was an ignominy which, in his words, “makes or breaks you as a player”.
Everything since has been an attempt to move on and a goal against Slovakia after three rather disjointed outings for Spurs would have offered evidence of recovery. Yet it was not to be. There was a fluffed connection at the near post from Kyle Walker’s pull-back, his feet all a tangle, and the passing up of a chance to shoot as half-time approached that would normally betray fragile confidence.
Maybe he would have enjoyed playing alongside Daniel Sturridge late on but he ended up making way for the substitute. Instead Kane’s most significant contribution was to induce the pair of fouls from Martin Skrtel that led to the Slovakia centre-half’s dismissal.
It all seemed a little too selfless, not that the setup had particularly benefited him. His toils in Trnava could be explained by shortcomings elsewhere. Sam Allardyce’s had been a frank admission that Wayne Rooney has far more experience at this level than the manager and so is almost better placed to read an international game.
Yet the captain’s willingness to retreat deeper and deeper as Slovakia sought to stifle left Kane a lonely figure in enemy territory. Too often in the first half his nearest team-mate was Jordan Henderson, who was supposed to be interchanging with Rooney in his forays forward.
England’s most prolific goalscorer may just have spotted the team’s lone forward amid the clutter of Slovakia bodies but expecting Kane to make hay from any of his passes was asking too much.
Isolated on the periphery, it took Kane 13 minutes for his first meaningful touch. Kane is not blessed with lightning pace and needs players with energy buzzing around him, dragging opponents out of position to create the space he can exploit.
It was no surprise he was bolstered by Dele Alli’s introduction and, if there is subtlety to Rooney’s passing game, then he needs to be instigating the interplay much closer to Kane. The pumped diagonals to Raheem Sterling or Adam Lallana looked glorious when they came off but they slowed down the approach play and allowed the hosts to regroup and smother the only man in the centre.
Kane would have been forgiven a certain exasperation, though he was in no mood to show it. “Wayne is a fantastic player, his passing ability is second to none and he has put some great passes in,” he said. “Not just diagonals but through-balls as well. As a striker, if you have the quality service behind you, you are always going to get chances. We have got the players to put the balls in and create, so all I can do is my best for the team.”
That was a diplomatic praising of his team-mates’ talents which rather overlooked the fact that England, as a group, appear to have forgotten how to play to his strengths.
Victory at least allowed Kane to reflect on the occasion as another step en route to full fitness at a time of the year when rustiness is an issue. The strain under which he is working, having featured in tournaments over the past two summers, with the England Under-21s and then seniors, may explain the sluggish starts.
He did not register for Spurs a year ago until game nine and that 4-1 defeat of Manchester City, though he had scored in England’s wins over San Marino and Switzerland earlier in September.
It took the match against Bournemouth’s particularly accommodating defence in late October, which yielded a hat-trick in a 5-1 success, to start the avalanche. “And I still went on to win the Golden Boot, so that proves it was just a matter of time,” he said.
“People might talk now or if I don’t score in the next five or six games but it doesn’t bother me. I’m a confident player. I know I will score goals. I feel good. I felt sharp against Slovakia, albeit it was a tough game with the heat. This is only my fourth or fifth game, incluWding pre-season, so I am getting fitter with each run-out. It’s similar to what was happening last year with a shorter pre-season. Anyway, I put in a good shift for the team.”
At least he did not find himself taking corners, as he had for a while at Euro 2016, and Kane has had “a laugh and a joke” with Allardyce when the subject of being asked to adopt those duties against Russia by Roy Hodgson has cropped up. He has learned to chuckle at some aspects of the summer. A few goals would permit him to move on for good.