Harry Kane ripped England stars for missing Nations League, but Three Lions are better off with new blood

Perhaps Harry Kane’s sparky comments in midweek did light a fire in the end, even if not in the constituency he intended. The England captain had called out a crop of eight players, many of them among the most senior figures in the squad, for withdrawing from November’s Nations League games. 

“I think England comes before anything. England comes before club,” he told ITV Sport ahead of the Three Lions’ successful trip to Greece on Thursday night, one they made without the likes of Declan Rice, Cole Palmer, Phil Foden, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Bukayo Saka. “England is the most important thing you play as a professional footballer and Gareth [Southgate] was hot on that and he wasn’t afraid to make decisions if, you know, that started to drift from certain players.”

He added: “I think it’s a tough period of the season, maybe that’s been taken advantage of a little bit. I don’t really like it if I’m totally honest. I think England comes before anything, any club situation.”

Bayern Munich, his employers to the tune of $25 million a year, will doubtless have a view on such comments. So, it appeared, did those tasked with entering the fray in place of some of England’s most senior internationals, including Kane himself, who interim head coach Lee Carsley benched for Ollie Watkins. A 3-0 win in Athens puts promotion out of the second tier of the Nations League back in England’s control.

Really, however, that shouldn’t be the point. That would appear to be where Kane is labouring under a misunderstanding of where the England team are now. It is not just that being at these games need not be the be all and end all for the players. Their presence isn’t the be all and end all for England.

By now there are few if any international sides who know their base template better than England. Over the last three major tournaments the players have learned what they can be at the peak of their powers, the depths they can plumb when off color and just what is taken to dig themselves out of the crater they’ve dynamited themselves into. What England need most from Rice, Saka, Alexander-Arnold and the rest of their established stars is their fitness and form come the summer of 2026. If that means a fortnight off work in November 2024, they should have the backing of their skipper, who knows that many of that group are not the sort to cry injury when the England call comes.

There might be plenty for Thomas Tuchel to work on when he takes the helm — his first fixtures will be World Cup qualifiers in March — but Carsley seems to have understood throughout his three window tenure that the best he could do is blood some of the best and brightest, many of whom he brought through the Under-21 system.

Would Curtis Jones have driven so robustly through the Greek midfield if he’d been sharing the pitch with a hobbled Rice? Would he even have been on it in the first place? The same questions but for Noni Madueke and Anthony Gordon, both of whom offered compelling cases in the absence of Saka and Foden. Given the latter struggles to replicate his club form on the international stage and so far this season has looked more like his England self than Manchester City, Tuchel might just see the stars of this impressive win in Athens as worthy starters.

Kane, too, looks like he has a fight on his hands. Their captain, so leaden-footed going through Euro 2024, England saw what happens when they have a center forward who can stretch into the space behind the defense, Ollie Watkins’ presence paying off after only seven minutes. The hero of England’s semifinal win over the Dutch might not need to experience higher stakes moments but plenty of those around him did.

“It’s important if we want to put players in a position to win the World Cup that these players need to have as many experiences as we can,” said Carsley. “I see the quality the players have got. The younger ones are more than capable with the quality and mentality they’ve got.”

On Thursday they proved that, just as England needed them to. An age group that has proven its propensity for silverware — 2017 U17 world championships, 2023 U21 European champions — got a chance to test itself in as near to a high stakes encounter as the Three Lions are going to get before they take to the field in North America in 18 months’ time (cataclysmic qualification campaign notwithstanding). The Nations League is hardly the be all and end all for a country with bigger aspirations but swerving the embarrassment of a promotion play off in the spring is not nothing. When the everything moments come, England will now have a better sense of what their fringe players can offer them.