Gareth Southgate paid tribute to “ruthless” Harry Kane after his hat-trick saw England reach the European Championships in their 1000th game.
England beat Montenegro 7-0 at Wembley to make sure of their place at next summer’s Euro 202 finals.
Three Lions boss Southgate said of Kane : “He’s an incredible goalscorer, that’s the obvious part of his game, but he’s a number 9 that can play and link as an outstanding number 10 as well.
“So, not only does he lead the line for us, providing the goal threat, he also provides opportunities for others and I’ve said before, what an unselfish player he is.
“But of course when those opportunities are there he’s absolutely ruthless.”
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Southgate’s stars – the youngest side in 60 years – shrugged off the controversy surrounding Raheem Sterling’s bust up with Joe Gomez on Monday to demolish Montenegro.
Leicester left-back Ben Chilwell provided a hat-trick of assists with Alex Oxlade- Chamberlain and Marcus Rashford also joining in the fun.
Montenegro defender Aleksander Sofranac put the ball through his own net with 24 minutes left for 6-0. Chelsea ’s Tammy Abraham rounded off the scoring from close range with six minutes left.
Kane’s treble left England top of Group A and means he has now scored 31 times for his country. The Spurs hitman now needs just nine more to go level with Michael Owen on 40 international goals.
(Image: Action Images via Reuters)
Kane is the first player to score a hat-trick in consecutive appearances for England at Wembley, having netted three against Bulgaria last time out.
He is also now England’s all-time highest-scoring starting captain with 24 goals.
England had raced into a 4-0 lead after just half an hour – the earliest they had done so for 73 years – before Kane added their fifth shortly before half time.
Southgate added: “I think the quality of our attacking play in the first half was excellent.
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“It’s been a group that we expected to win but we’ve totally taken teams apart and matches in the past have been problematic for England teams.
“Opposition teams have defended deep in numbers and been stubborn but because of our speed, movement and speed of ball circulation, we’ve carved those teams apart – added, of course, to the quality of the individual players that we’ve got, both on the pitch tonight and the players that have played earlier in the campaign.
“So, we knew we had a team right the way through that would be really comfortable with the ball. Speed, athleticism, two high midfield players who can score goals as well and they did that in the first half. They’d killed the game within 25 minutes.”
