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| Harry Kane reckons he and Wayne Rooney could partner each other up-front against France |
HARRY KANE believes he and Wayne Rooney could work as the latest England strike partnership and the hope is that Roy Hodgson gives it a go against France tomorrow night.
With Jamie Vardy injured, the England manager is expected to play with the England captain in a deeper lying position behind Kane as the main striker.
In doing so, he will resurrect a strong English tradition that has coincided with some of the best football played by the national team in recent years.
Peter Beardsley and Gary Lineker lifted England from the doldrums of the late 1970s and early 1980s by spearheading a side capable of winning the World Cup - were it not for the Diego Maradona Hand of God incident in Mexico.
Then a decade later, the notorious SAS combination - international version - of Teddy Sheringham and Alan Shearer were the focal point of England's famous Euro 96 victory over Holland.
Michael Owen and Emile Heskey worked as a team famously in Munich when the Germans were beaten 5-1 and even the infamously goal-shy Heskey scored.
Rooney has carried the mantle of England's goalscoring during the qualification process with Kane adding to the tally in recent matches generally as some sort of "supersub", replacing the England captain.
The only time they have played competitive football alongside each other was for the last 32 minutes against Switzerland - a period in which both players found the back of the net at a rate of a goal every 16 minutes.
By contrast, since Kane entered the England scene against Lithuania in March, the 418 competitive minutes when they have each ploughed a lone furrow has yielded just four goals - one every 104 minutes.
True, the pair did not exactly fire when played for the full 90 minutes against Italy in March, but Rooney's brief cameo against Spain on Friday alongside Kane corresponded with England's brightest spell in the game and it is in friendlies that Hodgson can experiment with such formations.
Certainly Kane is up for giving it a whirl.
"Wayne a world-class player," he said. "We get on well. We play well when we're together.
"France won't play with as much possession as Spain. We're at home, so we want to put in a good attacking performance in front of the home crowd and get the win.
"But that's down to the boss. I'm happy to play where called upon."
Kane has not found goal-scoring quite so easy this campaign as he did in his glorious coming of age last season, but after an early drought the tally is trickling up and a failure to conjure much of note against European champions Spain has certainly not knocked his confidence.
"As a striker you want to score no matter who you're playing," he said. "I've scored three in my international career, and I want to score as many as possible. I had my chances in Spain. I probably could have done better in a few of them.
"It was a difficult test for us. We've got to learn from it. We won't come up against a better team possession-wise, and we were well organised from top to bottom. We were solid defensively.
"It's just about being more patient when we get the ball, instead of rushing things. That's the stuff to learn and this will help us.
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| Kane will be up against his Tottenham team-mate Hugo Lloris (pictured) at Wembley |
"But that's part of being a striker. You have to be ready for your next chance and hopefully that will be against France."
Standing in front of him, however, will be an all-too-familiar figure - France national captain and Kane's Tottenham goalkeeper Hugo Lloris.
"He's a top player and we get on well at Spurs," Kane said. "It will be interesting to play against him. We train with each other, so we know each other's game.
"He's in the top tier of goalkeepers. Some of the saves he pulls off and his all round play with the ball, coming out, he's a world-class keeper.
"But he's the France goalie and I'll be trying to find a way to score against him."
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