Refreshed or disrupted, talismanic Harry Kane is England’s focal point

No one seems to know quite what to make of England’s last performance, which is nothing new in the context of recent World Cups but an unsettling departure in this one. It is quite startling how quickly the ground shifts below one’s feet at major tournaments.

When the draw was made England would have been perfectly happy to get out of Group G in any circumstances. Yet when the time to play strongly fancied Belgium came around, Harry Kane was leading the scoring charts, Japan had been identified as the prize for victory and Roberto Martínez had already blinked first by indicating he would be giving some of his best players a rest.

Whether England were right to in effect choose the Colombia option will be seen on Tuesday. It is a delicate business deciding whether a supposedly easier quarter-final route is worth the risk of a slightly more difficult opponent in the last 16, and England must also hope that after rediscovering winning momentum for the first time in well over a decade it is not too seriously disrupted by losing a match that was there to be won.

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Yet in fairness to Gareth Southgate, who would most likely have faced just as much criticism for fielding his strongest side against Belgium reserves, keeping Kane fit and available for the knockout stage was an understandable priority.

The Tottenham striker has been described as the only world-class player in the England squad, which at the same time seems a tad premature and a trifle harsh on some of the emerging talents Southgate has brought to the fore, though there can no longer be any doubts about Kane’s value to the national side.

He is the captain, the goal-getter, the go-to man. Jamie Vardy can be a marvellous finisher but England would have to completely change their style to play to his strengths. Marcus Rashford is exciting but still improving, not quite the finished article. Even in three starts it is hard to imagine Danny Welbeck or anyone else making the impact Kane has made in two.

The opponents faced when Kane helped himself to five early goals were not the strongest, it must be admitted, but as England know only too well and Germany have just found out, getting off to a good start in a World Cup can make a crucial difference.

If England have spent the past week or so plotting routes to the semi‑finals with a confidence bordering on cockiness that seems entirely out of sync with their laboured football and defensive outlook at previous tournaments, that is Kane’s doing.

Others might have performed well, particularly Jesse Lingard, Kieran Trippier and John Stones, but Kane has scored the goals. The more superstitious among all the amateur England managers out there might have been tempted to give the captain at least part of the game against Belgium, if only to allow him the chance to continue his scoring run and further his claim to the Golden Boot.

When something is working so well why change the script, is a question that will have been asked in many a pub debate, especially as Kane has made no secret of his desire to finish as top scorer. The risk of upsetting such an important player will also have had a few airings but, as Southgate was careful to explain, he knows both the player and the risks very well and made his decision accordingly.

Why superstitious? Because this is virtually uncharted territory for England and picking up a fair wind in the opening games to set a course for the later stages of a competition still feels like the sort of hazardous enterprise that could be wrecked by any hint of hubris.

Terry Venables, the last manager to take an England team to a semi-final, has stated he would never have changed a winning team and could not see any positives in allowing momentum to be interrupted by inviting defeat. “Gareth has turned a reasonably simple exercise into something unnecessarily complicated and difficult,” said Venables, who was Southgate’s coach when the team reached the semi-finals at Euro 96. That seems unduly pessimistic, given that England have breezed out of the group and have a fit and rested first team ready to be brought back, though Venables’s caution is based on the belief that team spirit and a winning mentality are not easy qualities to instil in a side and cannot be turned off and on like a tap.

Southgate evidently believes they can and we shall see who is right in a couple of days, with the current manager acknowledging he will be blamed if things go wrong against Colombia.

In their first two games England looked as good as anyone else in the tournament, in their last game they looked more like their old selves, though few teams in Russia could make eight changes to their preferred lineup and still keep up the quality and bubbling confidence.

That is exactly the point the worriers make: why do it? Yet as Alf Ramsey said to his players as they received massages on the pitch before extra time in 1966: “You’ve won it once. Now you’ll have to go out there and win it again.”

To paraphrase that message for the Southgate era, England have already shown the world what they are capable of, they ought to be able to do it again. And who knows, with Kane back in the frontline and hungrier than ever, perhaps even again and again.

6 - If Harry Kane scores against Colombia, he will become the first England player to register in six consecutive games since Tommy Lawton in 1939.

10 - Kane has played only 153 minutes in Russia but only Gary Lineker (10) has scored more times for England in World Cups than the Spurs striker (five).

7 - Since – and including – the 1966 World Cup final, half of England’s knockout games have gone to extra time (seven out of 14).

1 - England have failed to score in only one of their 18 knockout World Cup games. That was against Portugal in 2006.