Joint-record England goalscorer Kane told he should be dropped because he ‘doesn’t want to score goals’

Joe Williams
Harry Kane takes part in a training session

Tottenham striker Harry Kane “shouldn’t play as a centre forward” for England “because he doesn’t want to be a centre forward”, according to Paul Parker.

Kane has been criticised in the past for dropping too deep to receive the ball for England when he could be better utilised staying further forward.

The Spurs striker is already Tottenham’s all-time top goalscorer and England’s joint-highest all-time top goalscorer.

Kane needs just one goal to better his and Wayne Rooney’s record of 53 goals for the Three Lions when England take on Italy on Thursday night.

But former Manchester United and England defender Parker has suggested that Kane doesn’t want to score goals.

Parker told BonusCodeBets: “I would start with Marcus Rashford over Jack Grealish every day. Grealish can win the team a lot of freekicks but he can’t win his team games. Rashford is a threat and Grealish isn’t.

“Unfortunately he was forced to withdraw with an injury.. But I think it’s an Erling Haaland injury he got. He is probably more focused on playing for his club at this moment in time so he decided to go back there.

“And I understand him. He knows that he is going to sit on the bench for England so why bother being there?

“If I had to choose my attacking line for England it would be Rashford, Foden and Saka. Harry Kane shouldn’t play as a centre forward because he doesn’t want to be a centre forward.

“Foden can easily play in the middle and in that way we could have three players up front who want to score goals.”

England boss Southgate is looking for his 50th win in charge and held a meeting before the trip to Naples where he told his players to reset and refocus on qualification.

“They’ve been involved in some of the biggest matches in world football and they know the level that’s required, they know they have the ability to compete at that level,” Southgate said.

“Then the fact that whatever we’ve done in the past is irrelevant tomorrow night because we have to start again.

“We have to have the humility to work hard to qualify again and it’s a great fixture for us to get that under way.”

Put to Southgate that European champions Italy’s failure to qualify for the World Cup could act as a warning that qualification cannot be taken for granted, he said: “Without a doubt.

“I think what we did really well after the Euros was our first game away in Hungary – we gave one of our best performances, I think. Our mentality from the start was really, really good.

“I don’t expect that mentality to be a problem but it’s a reminder that these early stages of qualifying are crucial.

“I can remember us scoring a late goal against Poland at Wembley with no fans and people would have taken that victory for granted but it was such an important moment in qualifying.

“We had several of those in our previous qualification campaigns.

“So, although some of those groups looked comfortable in the end, there were plenty of nights where that wasn’t the case.”

READ MORE: Transfer gossip: Man Utd to use England international in part-ex offer to Spurs for Harry Kane