There’s no denying the importance of Harry Kane in the England soccer team. After he managed to score a hattrick in the 4-0 win against Bulgaria in the Euro 2020 qualifier at Wembley, the forward for Tottenham Hotspur impresses with 25 goals in a total of 40 appearances for England. However, is Kane too central or too critical when it comes to the plans set forth by Gareth Southgate? England, despite all the goals scored by Kane, need a Plan B if the squad is keen on winning an international tournament. However, the consistency portrayed by Harry Kane is making it impossible for the England manager to come up with an alternative plan.

Harry Kane’s Record

For the statisticians and historians, Kane is currently ranked in 14th when it comes to the all-time list of goal scorers for England. He is one ahead of Geoff Hurst, who is the World Cup-winning hero of 1996, and one behind Bryan Robson, who is the former captain for Manchester United.

Alan Shearer (30 goals) and Frank Lampard (29 goals) are now within reach for Harry Kane and he could easily surpass both football legends by the end of the Group A campaign for England thanks to two matches against Kosovo, a game against Montenegro, a game against the Czech Republic, and a clash against Bulgaria still on the horizon. Seeing as Kane is currently in his peak, he firmly believes that he can eclipse Wayne Rooney as the leading scorer for England with 53 goals.

However, if England is interested in stepping up their overall performance and make it onto the world stage, the manager needs to find a way to avoid making Harry Kane the primary man. Think about it, when England required goals in the group stages of the World Cup in 2018, Harry Kane was unable to deliver against Croatia and Sweden as he did against Tunisia and Panama. He also fired blanks in the finals of the Nations League where he failed to score against Switzerland and the Netherlands. However, the England manager faces a massive dilemma with the striker from Spurs. He needs to select Kane because he is currently ranked as the number one forward.

England’s Other Attacking Players

England comes with an arsenal of attacking players in the squad thanks to Mason Mount, Raheem Sterling, Jadon Sancho, and Marcus Rashford. There’s no doubt that Gareth Southgate has looked at these players to see if he could replicate the movement and pace of the attacking trio of Liverpool or perhaps the trio that Tottenham Hotspur has used when Harry Kane is unavailable. Kane becomes less and less important the more profound the England side goes into a tournament, and that is just a fact. So, how exactly will Gareth Southgate deal with this issue once England advances to the quarterfinals or even semi-finals in the Euro 2020 tournament? Something to keep in mind once the tournament rolls around.